Horza's gaming diary

Assassin's Creed : Brotherhood Notes

2012-01-24T05:47:00.001-08:00

The story begins with a recap of past events.

Desmond Miles is the current incarnation of a long line of assassins. The Templar's are the bad guys and the Assassins seemingly the good in a battle for control of the world. Which it seems has been going on throughout history,there are alien artifacts in the world and control of these is it seems very important. Desmond has been captured by the Templars who take the form of Abstergo industries in the current time. They force him to use a machine called the animus to live through memories of his previous incarnations. He lives through the life of an assassin called Altair, looking for a relic of supernatural power called the apple of Eden.
Desmond is freed from the templar clutches by a woman called Lucy who is a modern day assassin. Now with the Assassins Desmond uses the animus to help them locate new relics. He lives through the life of Eizo, an Italian renaissance Assassin. The cliffhanger at the end of the last game saw the assassins being found by the Templars and having to flee.

We find ourselves in control of Eizo just after he witnessed the alien message in a crypt in the Vatican, which was not meant for him, it was meant for Desmond.
The chamber now seems inert, the only thing to do is walk back out of it into a circular indentation in the ground. The staff which opened the crypt is there, when Eizo tries to take it from it's place in the ground it vanishes into the ground and the whole cylinder sinks further down into the earth.
Mario appears above and urges Eizo to climb out of the pit.
We see the path using eagle vision.
At the tome Mario wants us to follow him.
We leave the chamber and find loads of monks watching, they are not very friendly, though don't fight us.
WE move through the church and then out into the castle and streets. Some guards give us a fight and then we are into the streets and clambering over the rooftops. At the top of a tower Mario takes the apple of Eden from Eizo for safe keeping.
We are now outside the city on horses, going back to the villa Auditore.
A cannonball hits near us as we approach, which it seems is done to let the player know that the villa now has cannons. we have to ride into the villa itself, there we meet Claudia, Eizo's sister. There is to be a meeting in the evening, where Eizo will tell the gang what is going on.
We now get control in the villa, with three quest markers to occupy our time.

Mission 1
We find a girl in the streets with a heavy box of flowers. Eizo offers to help and flirts outrageously. The girl will meet him tomorrow.
We simply have to carry the box from point a to point b to complete the mission.

Mission 2
A stable hand has lost Mario's favorite horse.
we have to chase it and bring it back to the stable.

Mission 3
On the battlements we find the cannon soldiers, they are having trouble with the guns, the engineers can't be found. We are to go find him, he is nearby and drunk. Eizo appeals to his sense of craftsmanship and gets him to come back to the cannons. Here he fixes them and we are to test fire them. We have to shoot them at some dummies.

Now it seems we have done the side missions, time to get on with the main story.

Triggering the cut scene we meet Catherine, who seeks help with defence of Forli, Eizio tells her that he will aid her. Then we meet Claudia and Eizio's mother. Machiavelli and Mario come and the meeting begins. Eizio tells of Minerva's message about trouble for the future and the hidden temples that will aid humanity. Machiavelli is angered because Borgia still lives.
We are directed to Eizo's bedroom, where Catherine arrives to sleep with him.

In the morning as Eizo and Catherine wake the villa is attacked by cannon fire.
Outside Eizo and Mario plan what to do. The Borgia army is close and the best thing is to flee. Eizo is tasked with defending the villa using the cannons until Mario can evacuate the civilians.
On the ramparts there is a huge army coming, cannons are set up and firing at the villa. We have to shoot the cannons. Using cannons on each side of the tower we shoot some cannons until told to go to the ramparts where siege towers are bringing men onto the ramparts. We go and fight them there.
Now a cut scene shows the main gate being breached and Mario injured. Cesare Borgia arrives, he has Catherine captive. He kills Mario in front of Eizio.
Injured now Eizio has to make his way back to the villa to save Claudia and his mother. We find Claudia and then have to take her to a sanctuary.
Eizio tells his mother and Claudia to go to Firenze. He takes a horse and is now out for revenge. Injured he collapses off the horse on the road.

We are back with the future, or should that be present Assassins. Desmond is in an animus housed in the back of a truck. They have relocated to the Auditore Villa. Lucy Shaun and Rebecca are having trouble accessing some of Eizo's memories. They try and find the way into the sanctuary.
Desmond is now fairly full on assassin material able to do all of Eizo and Altair’s moves. We follow Eizio's ghost looking for a way into the sanctuary.
Desmond is worried by the increasing visions of the past he is having outside of the animus.
A problem which saw a previous animus user go mad and die.
We come to a blocked gate, we let Lucy in underneath and we have to find a way around.
We come to a lift, which is a new feature, ropes that when released hurl you upwards.
Now we progress through some platforming. Lucy needs our help to get past certain obstacles.
There is constant dialogue between them, it seems similar to Prince of Persia.
We can hurl Lucy across gaps and she then opens the way for us.
Eventually after much climbing we enter the sanctuary.
We then go up and open the doors for Shaun and Rebecca.
There is a hidden set of numbers on the wall, written by Eizio.

Mission (main)
We have to provide power for the new animus lab, which is being set up in the sanctuary.
We have to install power diverters in circuit boxes, which will divert power to the lab.
This is a quick trip around the town looking for the four circuit boxes.

Back in the sanctuary, everything is ready, and we are prompted to get back into the animus.

We are shown a new training mode, which is like challenge rooms.

Now we are back to the story.
There are codes in subject 16's ramblings, which translate to geographical locations inside the animus. Shaun asks that we see if there is anything of interest in these places.

We see Eizio being woken, he is in Rome, Machiavelli wants to see him and he has been provided with some clothes and weapons.

Mission 5
First we have to find a doctor to heal Eizio of his wounds. We find a doctor and get medicine.
Now we have to climb a tower and synch the map.
I am told to follow some guards, staying close but not too close. a meter starts to fill if they are suspicious. I follow them to their destination and they start to attack a man near a gallows. I kill the guards and then find out from the man that his wife has been hung. The executioner here is corrupt it seems and we are sent to kill him. I find him, assassinate him, and then kill the few guards who are nearby.

The next objective is a pillar, i am told that I must light a Borgia tower to buy a property.

Mission
I meet Machiavelli, who seems surprised that Eizo survived the Borgia attack on the villa. I imagine he might have had some hand in it due to our earlier spat.
We have to walk with him through town.

He gives us money to buy some armor and a weapon. He tells us about someone he wants us to kill. A general of the Borgia's. We come to a stable, Eizo suggests riding, Machiavelli tells him that the Borgia's have taken important parts of the city like this stable.
We have to assassinate the captain of the stable guard I do this, then go back to Machiavelli, who tells us they will just send new guards.
We now have to climb the tower of the stable and Burn it.
This makes the property available, we go to it and renovate it.

Mission
Easy come easy go
We are to ride with Machiavelli, as we talk a thief steals Eizo's coin purse. We have to chase and take it back. Then go and meet Machiavelli again.

Mission
Who's got mail
We have to find a contact of Machiavelli who has a letter for him.
We find him as guards are about to kill him, and have to save him. Then we have to give chase to a mail carrier who has the letter we want. This mission takes place in the coliseum.

Mission Crepi il lupo.
We have to deliver the letter to Machiavelli, we come to some ruins and are attacked by some men dressed as wolves. Once they are downed we enter their hideout.

Mission Halls of Nero
Locate the shrine to Romulus.
This is a platforming mission, jumping around in the underground ruins I find switches that trigger fountains to fill up a pool.
This fills the pool and makes it collapse, we then drop down into a circular area where you have to find the start of a long clambering section, an urn on a plinth marks the start. There is much platforming, we see a Romulan cult member being thrown off a ledge by another.
we then climb the rest of the way around this large room and up into the treasure chamber. Here we are given the first of 6 keys to a special set of armor. We leave by a hatch, and meet up with Machiavelli as planned.
Machiavelli thinks that the Romulans are being employed by the Borgia to stir up unrest and aide their political cause. Machiavelli tells us about tunnels, which are the games fast travel system. We travel to a hideout furnished by one of Machiavelli's friends called Fabio. Eizo decides he needs to make some contacts in Rome.

I am presented with free roaming, I synch a few nearby viewpoints by climbing their towers, also kill a Borgia commander and burn down the tower.

Mission
Eizo goes looking for a brothel mistress and finds that she has been taken by slave traders.
On way the I find another Borgia tower, kill the captain and ignite it.
I find the slavers, who take my money, and also kill the madam. I have to kill all the slavers.
Now we must return to the brothel. Here we find Eizo's mother and sister Claudia. with the madam dead a new one is needed. Claudia volunteers, Eizo isn't happy about this but agrees. We speak to the architect and pay to have the brothel repaired.

On the way to the next mission I synch a tower.

Mission
I go to a house and find Bartolemo, and his wife. Bartolemo is positive, though his wife is more realistic about the fighting.
She wants us to help, we have to eliminate a Borgia captain and send his troops to attack a barracks, this means the French can do something else more easily.
We first have to chase down the captain and the destroy the tower. We now have to go back to Bartolemo, who asks us to help him fortify the castle, in return Eizo asks for information.
We are told about fight practice we can indulge in. Also carrier pigeon missions which will give us tasks to kill Templars.

Mission
Eizo goes to see an assassin called La Volpe who does not seem to like Machiavelli, and even thinks that he may be a traitor. He asks us to accompany him to spy on Machiavelli.
When we meet La Volpe some thieves get into trouble with Borgia guards. we have to aid them, one is injured and we have to get him to safety by blending in with the crowd and moving through the guarded area to safety. We now have to lose our notoriety. This is done by removing wanted posters. Bribing Heralds and killing officials. We have to remove our notoriety and then go back to La Volpe.
After saving the thief La Volpe is prepared to trust Eizo on Machiavelli. We give him money to repair an inn that will serve as thieves Guild.
Here we can enter thieves contests and gamble.

I try a Borgia tower, which seems glitched. I saw the marked captain, but he vanished in the fighting and I had to die to reset him. Oh I see now, the Borgia tries to get away on his horse. It wasn't a glitch.

Another Borgia tower, this time the captain is underground in tunnels.

Yet another Borgia tower.

I synch a tower.

Christina Mission
There is a map marker called a Christina mission.
This seems to trigger a memory of Eizo, he is talking with him brother and he is getting him to try and chat to a girl. He does and messes it up. We now have a mission to follow the girl for a second chance.
We have to tail her, until a man tries to rape her. We fight him and he vows to hurt our family. Eizo is rewarded with a kiss from Christina.

Courtesan assignment.
The ladies are being annoyed by a man called Santino who claims ownership of them, we are to humiliate him in front of the Borgia and this will see him off.
We find Santino beating up a courtesan and have to beat him up but not kill him.
I select fists and he goes down fairly easily. I then have to pick up his body and take him to a fountain and leave him in it.

Courtesan assignment.
A courtesan named Guiletta is in the employ of the Borgia, we are to follow her and kill her benefactor. This is simply a tailing mission and then you have to kill the man she meets. Once done Eizo tells the girl not to come back to the brothel.

Mission
We go back to the hideout and meet with Machiavelli, Bartolemo and La Volpe.
We can now buy buildings and fund the renovation of Rome which will swell the assassin's coffers and help the people.

I complete a Borgia tower assassination and tower destruction.

Mission
We see A Lucrezia woman parade Catherine in public as her prisoner. Eizo and Machiavelli watch. Eizo wants to rescue her, Machiavelli wants Cesare and Rodrigo killed first.
This is a big story mission. Which is good as there has been too much setting up shop so far.
Apart from the Desmond Missions, Eizo hasn't had much compelling to do since the attack on the villa.
We have to infiltrate a large castle. Climbing around we are guided to specific touring sites of the castle and see Cesare and Lucrezia talking through a window.
Cesare leaves, so Eizo decides he may as well free Catherine.
We come to Caterina and have to kill some guards, she tells us that the key is in Lucreza's chambers at the top of the castle.
Outside Eizo overhears Lucreza talking with a man, she appears to be having an affair. It seems that this is a game, as after the man leaves she talks to a guard who is to let Cesare know of the conversation. we are told to confront Lucreza, which brings guards, we have to kill. Then we grab her and have to take her to Catherine's cell. More guards come and we haave to keep hold of Lucreza who tries to flee when there are no guards around. When we reach the cell Catherine is freed and Lucreza shut in her own cell.
Now we must escape the castle carrying and injured Catherine.
This is easy enough a few guards to deal with. The gate need two cranks to be turned to leave as we cannot obviously climb with Catherine in tow.
We get to the stable and put Catherine on a horse. Now we must escort her to safety.
We ride across the bridge and Catherine is sent to meet Machiavelli. Eizo is to stay and distract the guards. We must stay in a marked area and fight for a minute until we are told to flee and lose our pursuers.

Courtesan mission, a girl has woken after being drugged. We are to find the culprits.
basically we follow her around beating up people, she eventually gets the right ones.

Mission
The gang meet, Machiavelli is suspect again. The situation seems bleak, Eizo wants to consolidate his influence in Rome. Also to begin recruiting assassins.
Machiavelli reluctantly agrees.
Now we must travel to some new map markers, where we find some citizens fighting Borgia guards.
When we kill the guards Eizo gives a speech and we have a new recruit for the Assassin's guild.
do this twice and the mission is over.

Mission
A courtesan has been murdered, and we are sent to kill him.
Simple enough job of finding and killing the marked target.

Mission
Eizo finds a child crying on a dock, it seems slavers have taken his mother. Eizo sets out to get justice. I have to follow the slaver to his hideout, then call my two new recruits to help me kill the slaver gang. Once done I am told to go to a pigeon coop. this is the assassins message board and we can now upgrade and give missions to our guild members. This makes us money and gets xp for the assassins leveling them up.

I recruit a few more assassins and buy up some shops

Mission
Huge in joke as a cardboard box from Metal gear solid talks to us.
Leonardo Da Vinci, is back, he has been working for the bad guys under duress. He has designed war machines. Eizo is tasked with getting the plans before they can be built.
We have a choice of gadget that Leo can make for us. I choose faster climbing.
We are tasked with hiring mercenaries to help us
Mission
I have to kill a templar overseer to recover a map showing the location of one of Leonardo's war machines. We are tasked with hiring mercenaries to help us. I approach the group and asks them to help, it costs us some florins.
I send them to attack the overseer, once he is dead we get the location of the war machine.

Mission
We arrive at a location where a machine gun has been built. We are to infiltrate the area and destroy the guns blueprints. The place is called the Colli Albani.
We have to sneak in without causing an alarm and burn the plans, then ignite some gunpowder near one of the machine guns. As we are getting out of the blast radius another machine gun appears and is driven away on the back of a cart. We give chase and land on it. In cut scene Eizo takes out the drivers and then we have control of the cart. We have to drive for a while avoiding horse riders and archers. Then we get to use the machine gun and shoot an entire squad of pursuers. After the pursuit dies down Eizo blows up the last machine gun.

I meet Leonardo and get a double hidden blade.
Also liberate a few more recruits from their fights with guards.

Mission
A complex plan is hatched to weaken Cesare's position. Involving cutting off his money supply to cause him to lose his army. Also a key to a secret entrance to the castle used by Lucreza's lover.
Christine leaves for Forli.

Mission
Another Leonardo war machine mission. Starts with finding the overseer and killing him for the location of the weapons and plans.
We come to a dock in Napoli looking to destroy a cannon emplaced on a ship that Leonardo has designed. We have to sneak in and find a shipyard worker who can help us. We then have to follow his boat along a narrow high corridor avoiding guards or assassinating them as we go.
When I reach the boat it small boat with a big cannon. I have to kill some guards and then flood the dry dock. This is done by climbing up to two cranks. Once on the boat we go out to sea and have to destroy four Borgia ships by setting their three sails alight. Driving the boat can't be done at the same time as firing. Once the boats are sunk, Eizo shoots the cannon into the boat and sinks it.

Mission
At Claudia's brothel, Eizo asks for the courtesans to take the banker's money after Eizo kills him. We must now seek out Senator Egidio Troche to find the Banker's location.
We find the senator being beaten up by guards, saving him, gets him on our side. We now have to get him through the city on foot, which means every guard needs to be fought in the crowded streets. Once at a safe location the senator reveals that he is taken to the banker, and never knows his location. Eizo wants to get him the money he owes so he can follow him to the banker.

Mission
Leonardo time again, kill the overseer to get the location of the war machine.
Tank Monte Cicero
We have to follow the architect of the tank into the castle. Once we get him alone we have to beat him up to get the location of the plans. Now we have to find the plans and burn them, and also destroy the tank. We need three people to operate the tank, handily for the plot there are captured mercenaries in the castle. I find and burn the plans then am directed to free the Mercs. Once they are free I have to follow them to the tank. We now have to fight every guard we just sneaked past, which makes it seem silly. After killing every soul in the castle we find a hatch and go under ground for some platforming.
Now we get in the tank and have to drive it around, taking out some cannon emplaced guns, then another tank. Now we come to a castle filled with war machine and two tanks. Once everything is blown up Eizo shoots the tank with a cannon and the mission is done.

Mission
We give the Senator the money and are to follow him to the banker. This is a long mission in which you are to tail the guards and the senator around Rome on the rooftops, you lose points for touching the ground. Eventually they reach the Pantheon and you have to enter it via the roof. Once on the roof you are to kill a guard. Which seems hard as I am too far away to target him, and it's too high to fall down to the floor of the pantheon. I find the way is to clamber down the walls, but it is quite hard to get Eizo to go down, he seems reluctant, you just have to persist. At the bottom I kill the guard and put on his uniform. We are now the boss of the guards.
We now have to go to the banker, after sparing the senator. However, we have to lead the way, which is daft as we don't know it. You have to walk with the chest and follow the cues from the two other guards, who say things like "this is the way," or "has he forgot where we are going". Eventually after much frustration I reach the destination.
Guards take the money and we find that Cesare is here also. We are to kill the banker and escape. I kill the banker and leave, mission done.

Mission
Paper trail
We go back to the brothel to find that some guards have tailed the courtesans back to the brothel, however, Claudia has killed them, this pleases Eizo and seems to be and end to the feud between them.

Mission
Leonardo again, kill the overseer to find the location, go to the mission start point.

Bomber
Valernia
We have to find the architect, in a crowded area, using eagle vision, then follow him to a quiet spot, and beat him up. He tells us where the plans are. Now to sneak into the castle and burn the plans.
This is a hard sneak into the castle, I find my way in by the stables on the right as you face the castle. Inside there is along path into a tower, marked by clamber points. You then have to go up the inside of the tower.I steal the glider and now have to bomb more of the army supplies. After bombing around six locations we have to take out some carts, then a messenger sent to warn the Borgia.
Eizo blows up the bomber glider and the mission is over. Here we see an example of annoying side show game-play that you need to suddenly learn and be good at to progress in a main story.

Leonardo gives us a parachute to use.
I also buy poison darts from him.

I ignite a Borgia tower

Mission
I find a woman sitting on a bench looking sad. seems she has been beaten by her husband who is working for the Borgia to spread Propaganda. I have to tear down his propaganda and lure him from his workshop. I have to take down about six posters then kill the husband as he comes after us with guards.

I ignite a Borgia tower.

Each Borgia tower appears to have a Blacksmith, Tailor, Art Merchant, Doctor, Bank and stable attached nearby to renovate as your own for a price. You can also buy famous landmark buildings.

Mission
I find a Christina mission marker and it starts a memory of Eizo. He is back in time at the point where his brothers have been killed. We need to get their bodies from the gallows and give them a decent burial. Eizo and Christine must make their way to the gallows, where we have to beat up a guard to find out what has happened to the bodies. He tells us they are to be dumped in the river. We have to make our way to the river, here we find the bodies lying in the street, we have to take them to a boat under the nose of the guards. There are three bodies to take to the boat. Christina can't leave Firenze with Eizo and they have a tearful farewell.

Mission
A courtesan knows of two ambassadors here in the city, she will lure them out for Eizo to kill. The first stands on a Balcony talking to the courtesan in the street below. An easy task to climb up behind him and kill him. The next is in the street, and he is an easy mark for a bench passing by assassination.

Mission
Courtesan assignment, Borgia agents are trying to pressure courtesans into revealing information about Eizo. We are to follow a courtesan and find a target ambassador. We now have to follow him to a building. Here he holds the courtesan at knife point when she calls for us. I sneak in behind him and kill him.

Mission
A doctor is poisoning courtesans, We have to find him, steal the antidote and return to the brothel before she dies. This is a race against time with only 2:30 on th clock.

Mission
Templar mission
I find a man who has had his stall smashed by a templar agent, seems the man won at horse racing and the templar is a sore loser. We are to kill the templar.
I find him on a horse in a field and kill him.

I find a woman standing on a ledge as if about to jump. Speaking to her it seems her husband has joined a gang and become a killer. She is going to confront him about it and kill herself. We are to kill him first to save her. I find him and kill him.

Mission
Courtesan mission
We have to find a courtesan who is working for the Borgia and scare her into running to her contact so we can kill him. I do this, she run, we follow and I kill the Borgia agent. Eizo tells the courtesan to leave Rome.

Mission
At the brothel we meet Claudia and the senator from earlier. He tells us of some people that should be killed and also a man called Prospero who we should save. This isn't a mission as such, just a prelude to a new batch of side missions.

Mission (Courtesan)
We have to intercept a courier giving a report to the Borgia and steal the letter, take it back to the courtesan who will forge a new much more interesting report and then we must return it to the messenger without his notice. A bonus is given for being quick.

Mission (Templar)
We find a man crouching by a door, there is a man firing at him from a tower and his daughter is inside. We have to help the man stop the shooter. I find the shooter after he kills the man and then have to kill him.

Mission (Courtesan)
I am to free people who have been causing trouble for the Borgia, including Prospero. I find the men surrounded by guards, this is basically a big fight, you can bring in your assassins and Mercs to help.

Mission (Courtesan)
A courtesan will show us a meeting of Borgia chiefs.
I go there with her on horseback and kill them all.

Mission (Main)
I meet Bartolemo, who is having trouble with attackers at his castle.
French troops are trying to take the barracks. We have to close three gates.
French troops are pouring in the gates and we have to fend them off and close the gates. Once you have a gate closed it gets easier as the troop reinforcements become less. Once the barracks are clear of French troops the leader of the French arrives on horseback and taunts Bartolemo. He has his wife and wants his surrender.
We have to follow Bartolemo as he rides to the French camp. It is a fortress. Eizo has a plan, we have to go back to the barracks.

Mission (Main)
Eizo plans to sneak into the French camp by stealing French armor. We have to get the armor without denting it too much.
I basically have to roam around the area killing French guards. There is a bonus for doing it without detection.

Mission (Main)
We meet Bartolemo and his men now dressed in French gear. We are to go too the French camp, where once inside we will attack.
We have to follow the large group of soldiers, then have a fight with them.
Then it gets weird. We have to follow them and can't stray too far away or we desynch. Now there are guards at a road block to kill and it seems to desynch whatever I do. Not good mission design here.
It seems there are three marked guards that need to be killed, however you must not alert the normal Borgia guards who are also present.
We reach the castle and are led deep inside. The French boss is never going to let Bartolemo's wife go, as he is about to shoot her in front of Bartolemo Eizo gives the signal and we are fighting. Within the battle Eizo is given tasks, first to kill the French leaders personal guards, then to chase across the rooftops and open some gates.
Now we have a stand off, the French leader will shoot the wife if we go to close. we have to sneak around and kill him without his seeing, or alerting any guards.

Mission (Templar)
We find a templar assassin who has killed a man's wife.
I find her in the location indicated and then have to chase and kill her.

I synch a viewpoint.
I synch a viewpoint.

Mission (Main)
We meet La Volpe, at the thieves guild, he is concerned still about Machiavelli's loyalties, which I presume he thinks are his own and not on either side. There are attackers on the way to find the location of the thieves guild, we must kill them. This is simply a straight out fight in the courtyard of the thieves guild area. Once done we must follow La Volpe on horseback to the location of some thieves who are in trouble. I get to the location and then have to save some thieves who are under attack. They tell us that someone called Pietro is to be killed. A top assassin has been sent to kill him. We go to another location and do the same. This time we are told by the thieves we rescue that Pietro is acting in a play tonight. Back to following La Volpe, this time they tell us that Pietro is to be ritually killed.
The mission ends here.

I ignite a Borgia tower.
I synch two more viewpoints and that is all the viewpoints done, 24 in all.

Mission (Christina)
Eizo returns to Firenze, and finds the Christina has caved to her fathers pressure to marry a man called Manfredo. It seems Manfredo has a gambling problem, and debt collectors are about kill him. I have to go to the location, and kill three men who are hurting Manfredo. Once done Eizo threatens him to make sure he will be good to her, and with a final kiss leaves Christina a second time.

Mission (Templar)
A monk wants us to kill a templar agent. I find him in a courtyard and kill him.

Mission (Main)
I meet a thief with La Volpe, who tells him the the killing of Pietro is to be made look an accident. La Volpe is sure Machiavelli is working with the Borgia and tells Eizo that he will kill him if Eizo does not.
We have to tail Micheletto to the play and get the assassin recruits into the play somehow.
First we have to locate Micheletto at the eastern gate.
At the gate we see Ceserae kill Franscesco at send Micheletto to the play. We have to follow on horseback. Then into a building where Micheletto gives costumes to a guard, We are told to use out assassins to kill the target, this gives them the costumes they will need to infiltrate the play.
We do this three times, each time the same, follow, watch the meeting with soldiers, then kill the soldiers using your assassins. Then back to following Micheletto, once he arrives at the coliseum he meets what he thinks are his soldiers, but in reality they are our assassins.

Mission (Main)
We have to climb the outside of the coliseum without being seen. Once inside we see the play going on down in the centre. There are three crosses and Pietro is on one of them. Seems to be a crucifixion play, there are gunmen around the coliseum, and we have to take them out first.
I go around the coliseum and kill four armed soldiers, then have to join my recruits backstage.
I now have to lead them onto the stage, we have a little dance to do before going on stage and assassinating Micheletto. As Eizo speaks to him he reveals that Pietro has been poisoned.

Mission (Main)
we now have to get to a doctor carrying Pietro to save his life.
The doctor is close by and Pietro is cured, he gives us the key to the side door of the castle which Lucreza has given him for their meetings.
Eizo sees a thief that he recognizes from the villa attack, he gives chase. When we catch him he has a letter and Eizo reads it and sees that this man is the traitor, not Machiavelli.
We must now go after La Volpe to stop him from confronting Machiavelli.
I race to Machiavelli, and am just in time to stop La Volpe from killing him.

Mission (Main)
At the hideout, the gang are all brought together, Claudia is made an assassin, and Machiavelli reveals that he knew what was going on, and helped in his own ways. He tells Eizo to go and kill Cesare.

Mission (Main)
We have to make our way back into the Castello, this time to kill Borgia himself.
After two checkpoint guided entrances, we use the key to open a door.
Then some clambering for two more checkpoints.
In cut scene we see through a window, the pope is not happy with Cesare, he accuses him of failure and the attack on the villa as the first big mistake. Cesare takes this badly and becomes angry, he demands the apple, Lucreza comes in and tells Cesare that the pope planned to poison him. We go in though an open window, Lucreza betrays Cesare and the pope is dead.
We now have to chase Cesare to the location of the apple. We have some clambering and then a chase through the streets with many many guards on our tail. Once escaped we have to use eagle vision to locate the apple is a statue. Cesare comes and Eizo uses the apple to kill his two guards. Cesare is looking unwell and flees.

Mission (Main)
We now have to escape the Vatican while the guards are on high alert.

Mission (Main)
Back at the hideout Eizo wants to wage war on Cesare's army with the apple.
We go to find Cesare meeting with his generals and use the apple to kill them all.

Mission (Main)
Cesare wants to meet with cardinals to drum up support, we are to disrupt the meeting.
We have to find a cardinal and tail him to the meeting.
Then kill the guards after breaking up the meeting.

Combat with the apple is rather unsatisfying here, it seems to soak up Eizo's health and give out a discharge that kills or disorientates the guards.
Basically all you do is run in circles and wait until your health recharges and then discharge the apple again and again until all the enemies are dead.

Mission (Main)
Cesare is trying to rally military support, again we are to intervene and kill the guards.
Once the guards are dead, Cesare runs, an army is coming to the gates, he thinks they are here to support him, they are not. They arrest him.

In cut scene Leonardo and Eizo talk, Eizo uses the apple and sees something, he leaves Rome going after Cesare.

Mission (Main)
We fast forward through time and find a battle, Eizo is in the middle and he begins to fight Cesare. We have a little quick-time button mashing here, then Cesare flees leaving us to fight guards.
As we fight a cannon shell lands in the middle of the fight and we are knocked down.
Getting up we are told to go to an olive field, we must run through the cannon peppered landscape, or ride, that is good also. The horse is killed and we must progress on foot.
Now we must progress through a battle, there are soldiers fighting and civilians being massacred. I have to climb a siege tower and jump from it as it falls into a castle.
We then move through another area and come to another siege tower, which me must climb to the top then confront Cesare. Fighting him is like any other battle only you have to kill him a few times, each time you wear him down, a piece of his armor falls off. Other guards are there to make it hard.

Once we have won, in cut scene Eizo throws Cesare off the top of the tower. We see a cut scene of Eizo hiding the apple in a secret vault under the coliseum.

The scene cuts to Desmond leaving the animus. The vault seems to need a password to open. The power goes to the villa and the team are left unable to use the animus to find out which password Eizo used for the vault.
we have to take Desmond around looking for answers, and at the top of the stairs, using eagle vision we find a triangle with numbers. Sean explains that it refers to a mathematical symbol which includes the names of God. and the number boil down to 72, which was also the year of the start of the coliseums construction.
We drive to the coliseum.
Desmond must do some intricate clambering in the modern coliseum and reach a secret door. Pressing buttons only shown by eagle vision, Desmond sees the alien holograms that Eizo saw. They continue to refer cryptically to saving the world.
Eizo meets the gang in a church, In the church Desmond sees Eizo's ghost clamber up the altar.
Doing this finds us a switch and the ceiling rearranges to make climbing possible.
After a clamber around the roof of the church we find a switch. This raises a pillar at the altar, climbing down is made easy by clamber posts which appear from the ceiling.
When Desmond touches the pillar the floor drops down like an elevator.
In a tomb we find the door we saw Eizo hide the apple. saying the number 72 opens the door.
Inside this room we find the apple on a pedestal in the middle. Very complex clamber posts rise from the ground and we have to make a complex circuit of the room to activate a bridge to the apple.
When the apple is reached Shaun asks about the location of the temple. The apple activates and flashes of symbols begins to appear. The alien voice talks about people who as missing and opening the way. It seems that it wants him to kill Lucy and takes control of him. He stabs Lucy and they both Collapse. The credits roll. During the credits it can be heard that Desmond has gone into some kind of shock and needs to be put back in the animus to save him.

25 hours
440 Achievement points for one play-through.

Controls

Left analogue stick    Character movement
Right Analogue stick    Camera control
Left trigger        Target an enemy
Right trigger        changes Eizo, from passive mode to action mode.
Left bumper        Call assassins/arrow storm.
Right bumper        Holding it brings up a weapon wheel.
Y            Eagle vision highlights objects and enemies of importance.
X            Attack
B            Grab
A            Jump
dpad            selectable choice of favourite weapons of healing.
Start            Goes to the pause menu
Select            Brings up the map
Clicking right stick
Clicking left stick

Battlefield 3 Notes

2011-12-13T05:48:00.001-08:00

It asks me to install high definition content, aren't all Xbox 360 games high definition anyway? What they really mean it that they want you to install the game on the hard drive.
well no, i don't really do that, don't know why to be honest, but have always really played games from the disc and never found it a chore, not going to change this late in the day on the Xbox360's life cycle.

Next is campaign choice and difficulty, easy normal and hard, i always plump for normal these days, just in case hard is too hard, as difficulty is a subjective thing.

Controls
Left and right analogue sticks as normal
Left trigger        Aim down sights
Right trigger        Shoot
Left bumper        Grenade
Right bumper        Melee attack
Y            Change weapon
X            Reload
B
A            jump
dpad            toggles
Start            pause
Select
Clicking right stick    Crouch
Clicking left stick    Run

Mission 1

Semper fidelis
New York, Brooklyn Bridge, a train, someone jumping from a bridge onto it, then falling inside through a window. A terrorist is there and we crash into him and take his gun. Control is given and we get to shoot at him.
I move through the train, crouch past an obstacle and shoot some more terrorists.
Then get a shotgun which is keeping a door shut.
A man attacks us and we have to button press at the right time to kill him in suitable depraved and viscous style.
I move onwards and come to a carriage door, I can see a man doing something through the glass.
It is a bomb and we have to get out through the window and climb past the carriage break. The bomb goes off and the carriage we would have been in are senting spinning back into oblivion.
The man shoots at us and we have to climb back on top of the train. Another bomb goes off and a rent is torn in the roof of the car. Some men shoot at us from the sides of the train.
Back inside we fight through some heavy enemies to get to a door. Inside we are ambushed by the man and a gun is held at our head.
Fade to black and this seems to be a flash forward to what is to come at the end of the game.

Mission 2
Operation Sword breaker

A marine Blackburn is in detention, homeland security has been told that they need to speak to the marine about an attack in New York.
He seems to be under suspicion, a picture of the man on the train is shown to the marine.
Looks like the marine is going to tell the story now in flashback.
We take see soldiers in the back of a transport, we are going to deal with the PLR in Iraq.
We get out of the back of the transport and have to follow a soldier to a point where we meet a commander who briefs us.
Viper squad were investigating an explosive at Spinza meat market and contact has been lost, we are to go and find out what is happening.
We move through some buildings and through a school, the ground shakes at one point.
We come out into an open area and a soldier is shot by a sniper. All hell breaks loose and we have to start shooting at the enemies who pour into the area.
Once they are cleared we move forward and are attacked by a rocket launcher from a nearby balcony.
We are looking to take out the sniper and head up some stairs looking for higher ground.
We have to sprint past some windows as incoming sniper fire comes in.
Now on a roof we crouch our way across it dodging sniper fire until we get to the end of the roof, we can see where he is, but not see him exactly. The idea is to have some suppressing fire then use a rocket to blast him. I do this it seems to work.
Now from the rooftop we are told to cover a squad who are extracting the man who was wounded by the sniper earlier. We have to shoot at those who attack the squad carrying the wounded man.
We are now trapped on the roof of the building as a large force of enemies arrive and enter it.
We use a plank to cross to the adjacent building then climb down the series of smaller roofs.
We cross the street and then enter a large building, inside we have to fight through.
Here we find two of the patrol we were looking for dead.
Outside in the street we are very exposed, it looks like the patrol are all dead or wounded. A bomb has been placed on a wounded man and a wire leads away into a building. We are told to trace the wire.
we climb though vents and enter a basement where we find the other end. As we are disarming it we are attacked and have a quick time fight with an enemy.
We have to go back out onto the street to help the squad who are under fire. We are told to go up onto a road bridge and use a machine gun as attackers stream down the street towards us.
We have to go and defend another flank as the attackers switch direction and are told to get on a car mounted gun. As we do a large earthquake hits and one of the nearby tall buildings comes down nearly hitting us.

Mission 3
Uprising
Back in the interrogation Blackburn is being asked about what happened after the quake, seems he blacked out for a while. As he awoke he sees the leader of the PLR talking to a man, maybe a soldier, who he asks the question, "do you want to live or die?" The man answers yes and appears to be dragged off in severe pain.
Blackburn blacks out again and then awakes later, there seems to be nobody around.
Then we see patrols looking for survivors, a voice on a loudspeaker tells us that the PLR is reaching out to help American soldiers. I don't believe that for an instant.
I sneak through a trench in the road made by the earthquake and then move through into the building we came through earlier.
Inside we can sneak attack an enemy and get his gun.
Now we are back to fighting our way forwards.
I move through the building, then fight down a torn up street. I come to a large open area filled with enemies. This is the car park we fought in earlier. There are a lot of enemies to clear then we go through a garage into another street. Into a bus and we are rocketed. This opens the way forward though.
Now we are back to the school we came through, we meet another soldier and have to follow him.
He tells us that there is a coup in Iran, we go back to the street where we first started and have to regroup. Here we use an emplaced gun until the ride arrives and we get out.

Mission 4
Going hunting
Back in the briefing room Blackburn is asked about what happened next. He went on a recon mission first, he is asked about Colby Hawkins, an f18 pilot. Blackburn seems to not know her.
we are changed to her point of view on an aircraft carrier near Tehran. The PLR leader Al Bashir has been located on satellite imagery and we are going to make his life hard. we follow a commander up onto the deck and get into a jet.
We take off and fly around for a bit, I am not in control of the flying, just the guns missiles and flares.
Migs attack and we have to kill them
We then have to use a variety of weapons to attack sam sites, planes on the ground and then a helicopter and a few cars.
We then fly back to the carrier.

Mission 5
Operation guillotine
Back at the interrogation, it seems that the intel was wrong and the helicopter and cars we blew up were not Al Bashir's. Al Bashir seems to be in charge of the PLR, there is also someone named Solomon involved.
Blackburn is asked about who shot his commanding officer and also about the time he found the nuke in Tehran.
The view switches to soldiers on the ground.
The missed strike has just taken place and we are on the ground nearby, a chance now is given to take some intelligence from an apartment building held by the PLR.
We run down a hill carrying a mortar, under enemy mortar fire. We have to set up the mortar then fire a flare.
We then climb over a wall and engage the enemy.
We progress up from the road up a hill under heavy fire, the enemy are dug in and have machine gun nests. I reach the buildings and a grenade is thrown inside this blows the door open we are inside moving from room to room.
On the other side we meet some more soldiers and are told to get in a hum-vee.
We begin driving through a tunnel and are moving into enemy territory.
On the other side of the tunnel, after a little badly disguised load, we are told that an ambush is very likely, though this is the most expedient course of action, which means we are basically expendable.
A vehicle is blocking the way and we stop to move it, which does not seem like a good plan to me. Though seemingly I am not in control of my interactive game anymore.
We approach a tanker, yes a tanker, and of course the enemy put a rocket into it blowing it up.
They are arrayed on a bridge over the road and we move up to flank them.
After crossing the bridge we move on up the road fighting all the way.
Then a tank appears and we duck into a building and it fires at us. A cut scene shows the gang getting up after the attack and dusting themselves off, we are now looking for a way out of the building as the entrance is now blocked by rubble.
we move through and out onto a street, the tank drives by backwards, and suddenly a missile takes it out.
We now have to support the javelin team, which is presumably who is shooting the tanks with the missiles. I find the javelin team just as they are killed and we get to take over and use the javelin on three incoming tanks.
Now we have to attack a building, lots of other soldiers are converging on the front. A frontal assault is silly, and the commander tells us to find a back way in.
We move around back and find a ladder.
Then climb in through a toilet window. A soldier ambushes us and we button press kill him.
Then have to knife another, then we are inside this bank and fighting lots of enemies in an open courtyard type area.
As we clear it the others come in from the front.
Now we are moving into the basement looking for Al Bashir.
We come to an elevator shaft and have to rappel down.
Friendly fire will not be tolerated flashes up far too often as you have perfect line on an enemy and then some team member will float in front of you, often while you are shooting.
I have also seen team members advance into enemy territory and be in the middle of enemy a.i being ignored, I have to shoot the ones they are ignoring that are still aiming for me.
at the bottom of the shaft we chuck in a flash-bang and then are fighting in the vault.
After the enemy are defeated in the vault we enter the actual huge walk in safe. Inside we find a case for three nukes, however only one is in the case.

Mission 6
Comrades
Back in the interrogation room Blackburn is being asked about the other two nukes, seems that something is going on in Paris, Blackburn is asked about a Spetznaz soldier named Dima, who it appears that he knows.
We change to playing Dima in Paris.
Driving in a car with another two Russians, it seems we are going after one of the nukes to prevent Solomon from using it, seems he is out for revenge.
We rush through the gates then enter a building through the parking garage.
We fight through the garage and down some stairs.
Through another section of the garage, we then come to an area where the enemy release gas, we have to put on a mask.
We now enter the offices and fight our way through them. Heading up the floors now.
The partner a.i. is a little annoying, they stop moving when there are enemies, adopting cover etc. However you know instantly if you have killed everyone in an area as they move on to the next part of the script without an instants pause. Sometimes you aren't sure all the enemies are dead, though if you see the partners running on as if they are safe as houses you know it's clear. Which is a bit of an immersion breaker.
Moving on through much office space we come to the trading floor.
Here we find out target, who flees. We have to give chase. We chase through the building. Fighting obstructers as we go and eventually come out onto the streets. The police are here in force and aren't in any way friendly to either party in this fight.
we wait and let the police give our enemies trouble, then move in when it looks like he is going to get past them.
We chase him down the streets, fighting police, the commander of the mission is hit by a rocket explosion and impaled by a piece of scaffolding shrapnel. He dies, we are sad, but give chase. There is a Mirrors edge like sequence, as we chase the nuke carrier up into a subway station. Here we find that the case is empty, the two are worrying about where it is when the answer is given. The nuke goes off and it appears they are both caught in the blast.

Mission 7
Thunder run
Back at the interrogation we are told that it was ten hours ago and 80,000 people are dead.
The talk turns back to the bank vault where Blackburn found the one nuke.
A tank brigade are coming to his rescue.
We are playing a soldier called Miller.
We are driving towards Tehran in the desert, here we use the tank to blow up other tanks and enemy vehicles. we attack a missile site using air support and then go in and finish the job, then a convoy.
We move into a populated area and find a convoy that has been ambushed, we have to get out of the tank and collect a control, then detonate a minefield clearing device.
Then we get back in the tank on the top gun and fight lots of soldiers, cars fitted with bombs start running towards us on suicide missions. Eventually this section ends and we are told that we have new orders, which is obviously us being diverted to go and help Blackburn.

Mission 9
Fear no Evil
We quickly skip to Blackburn, and he is still talking about the extraction from the bank.
Then we are back with Miller in the tank.
We drive through the streets fighting, and end up at the bank, our tank is immobilized at the doors. Blackburn appears and we have to protect him as he loads the nuke onto a helicopter, we come under heavy fire, eventually Blackburn gets away. Things look bad for Miller, the tank is not going anywhere, the enemy are advancing.
We see him overpowered and knocked out.
He wakes tied to a chair with a man standing in front filming. Not looking good. Someone, possibly Al Bashir talks to him, he talks about his sons toy, and being a hero. Of loss and the inevitability of death.
Miller is killed to make a point.

Mission 10
Night Shift
Blackburn is shown the video of Miller being killed, they don't believe that he isn't on the PLR side. However a phone call comes in, apparently someone fitting Solomon's description has been seen in New York.
Blackburn tells them that he knows he is coming, from when he went after him in Tehran, which of course we now flit to.
We are on a rooftop, we have to take out four lights with a sniper rifle. Which makes the landing zone dark. A vtol comes in and soldiers rappel out of it. We are to take out a lookout and then rappel down to the ground ourselves.
In a very call of duty trademark like sequence we follow the soldier we are with, avoiding patrols and shooting out lone soldiers and lookouts.
We climb up another ladder.
Then shoot at some more enemies that are in the way of the other team.
We enter a building, have an unnecessarily graphically violent fight and then are shot at and have to run for it into a sewer, where we leave an explosive surprise for the enemy.
We move through the sewer until we find a ladder back out.
As we come up a squad is on top of us and we have to take them out. Then we go inside a building and find the room where Miller was executed.
The room is attacked and we have to survive, we move down through the building and join the other squad. We are told to go up on the roof and provide over0watch.
Which we do.
Here we have to watch as they get into position then breach and attack. Enemies arrive en masse and we have to hold them off as best we can. Eventually a car breaks out and we have to run to the other side of the building and shoot at it. If we are successful we then have to go to the car and find Al Bashir has been thrown through the windscreen, we pick him up and have to get him to safety.
We run across the street and have to take out some soldiers that arrive. Then into a building, it is a mall. We end up in a shop taking stock. The HVT is badly hurt, and we have to hold off enemies until extraction.
We then have to run out to the vehicle.
This is a fucking annoying bit, I can't get into the vehicle, even when the HVT is aboard, scripting feels labored and just plain dodgy here. Eventually I realize that you have to wait in cover until you are told to board the helicopter. I manage to do it finally.
On board the helicopter we give Al Bashir a shot of adrenaline. He asks how we found him, and realizes it was the execution video. He imagines that Solomon has betrayed him, he decides to tell us his plans. Solomon is using trains to deliver the bombs and will strike on the 14th of the month. Al Bashir’s phone is recovered from his body.

Mission 11
Rock and a hard place.
Back the the interrogation room, Blackburn is accused of lying about this last confession of Al Bashir and also that the phone is Al Bashir’s. I am not sure what Blackburn has done to earn this scorn, though I am sure we are getting to it.
Using intel gleaned from the phone, Blackburn is redeployed to investigate an arms dealer called Kaffrarov at his Villa.
We are driving towards the villa when we are ambushed.
After killing the ambushers we find out that they are Russian paratroopers.
We regroup with a larger force which we were heading to meet and find out that Russians are dropping in heavy forces. The commander believes that the Russians were working with the PLR and want to silence Kaffarov before we get to him and find out what is going on.
We wade into the Russian camp and start shooting, which I didn't think was the best tactics, be hey, who am I.
We move on through the valley, stopping and starting fights with Russians. We have to take out armored vehicles at times with a rocket launcher.
Then a jet attacks, we have to move from cover to cover as it takes runs at us the squad. I am tasked with getting a ground to air launcher from a vehicle nearby and shooting down the jet.
Once this is done it appears that there is going to be a mutiny. two of the squad are dead. One of the other soldiers acts like this is a total outrage, how dare the bad men kill any of the nice people. He seems to want to turn on the commander, who admittedly was leading them into certain death. The commander asks us too choose, the screen fades to black.

Mission 12
Kaffarov
Back in the interrogation Blackburn is asked about why Dima was in Iran with the Russians.
We now switch to Dima's point of view, he is parachuting in with the Russian forces.
We land and then attack an enemy patrol, then take their car.
We drive straight into Kaffarov's operation, using the stolen car, blending into a convoy.
Inside it isn't long before we are spotted and we have to start fighting.
There are rings of security around the villa and it has the high ground, getting up the hill is hard work.
Once there we enter the villa.
We have to hang back and use a sniper rifle as the other two provide suppression fire. Then it's close quarters storming into the Villa.
We have to work through the entire thing, and it's huge, sometimes taking higher floors while the others take the lower.
We get into the basement and have to work our way around in the dark, then go through a training course set up in the basement.
They must be trying to artificially extend the game now, poor check-pointing here for the first time.
After taking out a machine gun we progress through the basement and come outside again at a helipad.
Here we have to run and jump onto the helicopter as it rises.
If you succeed a cut scene shows you fight Kaffarov inside the copter and then both of you fall out into the swimming pool, which was handy.
Dima beats Kaffarov until he starts talking.
Back at the interrogation, we find that Blackburn arrived at the Villa also, around the time this was happening. We take over from Blackburn’s shoes.
We start just outside the now wrecked burning Villa.
Inside we find Kaffarov by the pool. Dima speaks to Blackburn, he tells him the Kaffarov stole the Russian nukes, and sold them to Solomon who plans to blow up Paris and New York. Dima tells Blackburn that this cannot happen, asks that as two soldiers, with no politicians they work together to stop this and avert war.
A soldier bursts in and tells us to get down on the ground. He then shoots. I wasn't sure I had control. They aren't very good at making the scripting obvious.
It seems that this is our commander, and we have to shoot him, otherwise we die.

Mission 13
The great Destroyer
Back at the interrogation, it appears that we did shoot our commander. This is why we are being investigated. Solomon is revealed to be an American deep cover agent and it appears that Blackburn has been played by Dima, who the agents believe is the real terrorist.
Blackburn is still convinced that Solomon is going to nuke New York. A train has been stolen it appear. Despite this in good story logic the agents still don't twig that Blackburn is right.
Another man from the unit, Campo I think is brought in. Blackburn asks if he trusts him. Looks like they are going to make a break for freedom and take on Solomon.
We fight the agents who come to take us away to jail. Then jump out of the window. A short trip through some alleys and streets we jump from bridge onto the train.
Now we are back mission one, which we repeat until the point where we come face to face with Solomon. Now we fight him with quick-time and we detonate another small charge which crashes the train.
When we come to Solomon is gone, we fight some more enemies.
We then chase through the sewers fighting, then out onto the streets. We are met by Campo in a car and we drive after Solomon. Eventually we crash into him and have to quick-time fight him.
After beating him with a brick, we stop him from setting off the nuke.

We see that Dima survived the nuke in Paris, though he did get a good dose of radiation.
The credits roll.

8 hours
225 Achievement points

Modern Warfare 3 Notes

2011-12-03T20:14:00.001-08:00

I choose a new game, on hardened difficulty.

We see Price and Nikolai bringing Soap in on a stretcher, cut with flashes from the previous games. The screen goes dark and we hear a defibrillator charging.

The scene changes to New York where the Russian invasion is in full swing. We have a mission to complete, a jammer system has been erected in Wall street, we are part of Delta team and find ourselves in a crashed helicopter in the streets of Manhattan. Our character's name is Frost.
After getting out of the helicopter we find the streets in ruins, missiles are still hitting the skyscrapers.
We have to fight along the streets until we come to a doorway and are told to follow the leader of the mission whose name is Sandman. We move through the offices then out to the alleyways. We are told to throw a stun grenade to take some Russians by surprise.
Moving through the alley we come out into a department store, here we clear out the Russians as they stream in from a hole in the wall. Out into the street we are heading towards the stock exchange. Fighting our way inside we come out onto the actual stock exchange floor.
The stock exchange floor is a nightmare or random fire, I eventually make my way across and up some ladders and stairs. Then I have to clear a balcony and come out at a ladder onto the roof.
On the roof the Russian soldiers guarding the jammer have to be taken out. We then place some thermite explosive on the jammer and bring it down.
Rocket teams on the roofs attack and we have to use a predator drone to take them out. A Russian hind helicopter attacks and we have to use the drone to destroy it also. Then we get aboard a helicopter. Now using the emplaced guns we fight some helicopters rushing through the skyscrapers.

Mission 2
Hunter Killer
With the jammer down and comms back up, a co-ordinated strike by jets takes out several key targets in Manhattan. This pushes the front line back to the harbor. There is a submarine with cruise missiles here and the plan is to take it and use the Russians own missiles against them.
We are still playing Frost, and find our self in a diving suit in the Brooklyn tunnel, which has been submerged.
Using propeller floats we move through the tunnel and out the hole rendered in it's roof. Here we meet the navy seal team and move on with them. There are mines to be avoided. The submarine passes overhead.
We place some mines on it, which makes it surface when detonated.
Now we climb on top and shoot the enemy as they open the hatches for us.
Inside we move through the sub shooting as we go.
When we get to the bridge we use a kicker breaching charge and enter in slow mo to kill everyone inside.
We get the launch keys
Then turning them together launch the missiles against the Russians.
We have to evacuate quickly and get out of the sub and into a zodiac boat. We have to drive it through the rowdy crowded and exploding harbor, in true action movie style. We reach a helicopter and are extracted.

Mission 3
We find ourselves back with Soap and Price, Soap is still badly injured and incapacitated. Makarov is tying up loose ends and it seems Price is a prime loose end. We play a Russian spetsnaz soldier named Yuri who is tasked with helping Price.
Outside the room we find our self in is a courtyard, helicopters are landing troops, which breach the courtyard. after a bit of fighting we have to go back inside and help Soap, we give him a shot, which looks like it would do more harm than good. The place is obviously unsafe and we need to leave. Price leads the way, another man carries Soap and we have to clear the way with Price.
Through the courtyard we come out into a street filled with civilians and the bad guys have no problem mowing them down to get to us.
We move through the streets fighting hard for every inch of the way.
We are promised a helicopter to extract us, though there are too many of the enemy between us and it. There is a unmanned ground vehicle in an armory nearby, we have to go and get it.
We have to drive this vehicle, armed with a mini-gun and grenades through the short distance to the chopper, however an entire army seems to be camped here. Some helicopters also attack. At the chopper we wait until the gang are aboard then a predator drone takes out the UGV. Yuri now has to run for it to the chopper. He is hit by a blast and falls down a slope into the water. We pick him up.

Mission 4
Turbulence
We are playing a Russian secret service agent called Harkov. He is on board the Russian president's plane where a meeting is taking place. The president wants to make peace with America and there is resistance among his advisors. Gunfire is heard, it seems that there are enemies aboard the plane. We have to make our way through the plane taking out the enemy boarders.
We get to the rear of the plane and find the president's daughter, and save her from the gunmen.
Then we go through a door and all hell breaks loose, the plane breaks in half, we can see the back of the room we are in tear away. Then we see the plane is sliding along the ground. An engine comes in and hits the section of plane we are in and it all goes black.
Harkov wakes and is unsteady, limping and his vision blurred. We are helped up and we have to go and find the president. His daughter is found. We move out into the snow and the trench that the plane's landing has ploughed looking for the president.
We move on looking for the president, the enemies arrive and we have to fight them. The president is found and we head for his location. A helicopter arrives to extract the president, we are told to open the door for him. As we do Makarov appears from inside and shoots Harkov. The president is captured and asked for missile launch codes. He refuses, Makarov tells him that his daughter will suffer for this.

Mission 5
We are with Price, Soap and playing as Yuri. Makarov has some cargo in Sierra Leone, they think he is planning to invade the UK. Price thinks he might be able to find Makarov here.
As the mission starts we find the gang up to their knees in a river.
We move downriver and come across a patrol, Soap kills one of them.
We have to snipe two men who are burning civilian bodies.
We come across men burning civilians who are alive and we have to kill them.
Then we sneak through the village which has been attacked. We have to avoid and hide at some points and take out lone men at others.
We are told to take up a high position and protect Soap and Price as they advance.
They get to the factory and it's empty, wrong intel. We are told to progress further into the town. Things go pear shaped and we are discovered, the militia attack in large numbers and we are told to progress through the firefight. I come to a truck with an emplaced gun and we have to use it to mow down loads of militia and their trucks. Mortar fire makes us abandon the truck and we have to run for it through incoming mortar fire. We are told to take out the mortar operators, then use the mortar to defend ourselves.
We then make our way through a sewer and into another street firefight.
The objective is a church where the cargo is suspected to be.
We have to storm the church quickly, as a helicopter arrives to take the cargo away. After much militia mashing we are too late and the cargo is lifted away in front of our eyes.

Mission 6
Mind the Gap
The cargo is expected to head for England, MI5 and the SAS are on alert looking for it.
We take the role of an SAS officer named Burns
We are attacking a warehouse where the cargo is suspected to be, there are trucks being loaded.
We move through the warehouse, with sniper support and fast efficient kills. we end up fighting all out in the car park at the last truck, it is found to be empty. We fight our way through the enemies and end up at the London underground. Seems they have got themselves a train and are going to use it to deliver their weapon. The train leaves in a hurry and the SAS give chase using trucks on the underground. This is a fast paced on rails ride.
Eventually the train is derailed and we board it. moving through it into a station where we take on more terrorists. We come out onto the streets and have to take out one of the vans as it comes along the street towards us. This van is taken out, however there were others.
We see a family vacation, filming a mother and child as they go to Big Ben. The truck pulls up in the background and then explodes, after the explosion we see that it has released poisonous gas.

Mission 7
Goalpost
Delta force
The attacks were not just in London, all over Europe similar attacks have softened up key government targets. The Russians start to invade Europe.
Frost is now part of a landing force that is pouring in to Germany to reinforce the defense against Russian invaders.
We land amongst a large American force, we are tasked with finding out what has happened to the vice President who was here, his convoy has been ambushed. We start by following tanks up the beach and into the streets. It's fairly chaotic with fire from all directions.
We come to a barrier and regroup with the tanks. The gunner in one is shot by a sniper and we have to take over. We use the gun on a hind that is approaching and then go into a parking garage. Here we move around the garage shooting at soldiers and vehicles. The tank falls through around three floors of the building at one point and is broken. We need to get back out on foot. Now we basically progress through the streets and buildings fighting all the way until we come to the convoy, there is no sign of the Vice President. We move into a building nearby following a trail of blood, we have to breach a room and shoot the gunmen before they kill the vice president. He is then extracted by helicopter.

Mission 8
Somalia
We are back with Soap,Price and Yuri, going after a Somalian warlord named Warrabe
We are storming his compound, no finesse, straight in through the gates with jeeps and helicopter support. We get to use the helicopter gun by remote control at certain points to clear out some of the resistance.
Much fighting in the buildings and yard of the complex and we eventually get to Warrabe's office. Inside we have to breach and clear as usual. Then we interrogate Warrabe, which means setting off a gas grenade and withholding his gasmask. After he tells us about a man named Volk who was involved Soap shoots him. A sandstorm is approaching fast.
We come out of the building and head for the LZ. As the helicopter arrives we are ambushed. We now have to fight to a safer landing zone. We progress through to a building and get up onto it's roof. The helicopter is shot down and we now have to go and save the pilot Nikolai. We move through the sandstorm which is darkening the area and dust and debris is flying everywhere. We fight through to Nikolai and have to carry him to a point where we are met by jeeps and escape.

Mission 9
Bag and Drag
We are back with Frost, who is now in Paris, going after Volk on Price's tip. We are to capture him alive if possible.
We move through a bombed building and find some dead American men. Then are attacked from across the street, we have to move across the street and enter a bookstore.
After clearing out the bookstore we move into the streets again and meet up with some French forces. We now have to move down an enemy infested street and find the gas truck, then through some buildings. We come to a heavy concentration of Russian troops and have to throw gas marker flares for air support. Then the same for a tank type truck called a BTR.
We then move down a manhole cover into the catacombs.
The catacombs are the famous bone encrusted underground tunnels of Paris.
Inside we roam around and are ambushed. Volk makes a run for it and we have to give chase.
We chase him through the catacombs and out into the building and onto the street.
Then we get into a car and chase Volk's car. eventually after shooting up half of Paris and being shot at by tanks, helicopters and gun mounted jeeps we crash into Volk's car and kill his guards. we take him alive.

Mission 10
Iron lady
we now have to get out of Paris with Volk in one piece.
We start on the ground with frost and the gang, the aircraft sent to extract them is hit. We switch to a spotter plane and have to take out loads of tanks and helicopters that are converging on the team. Then we have to escort them down a street. The aircraft is attacked and we switch back to Frost. A machine gun is keeping them pinned down and we are sent to flank it.
After flanking the machine gun we have to throw smoke at a tank that arrives. We then switch back to the flying eye and have to take out more tanks and helicopters as the team get into vehicles and move through the city. They come to a bridge and we move back to Frost.
We have to use a rocket launcher which can lock on called a javelin to destroy two tanks.
Then push on over the bridge for extraction.
We are pinned down and it all looks hopeless as we run out of ammo. The cavalry arrive just in time and blow things up, some much so that the Eiffel tower is knocked down.
We are extracted with Volk.

Mission 11
Volk is tortured and reveals Makarov's whereabouts, he is due to attend a meeting in Prague, Price, Soap and Yuri are now going after him.
We find ourselves in sewers and have to progress to a meeting with resistance fighters, we have to sneak under some piers where soldiers are herding prisoners and civilians, some are being shot. We then enter another part of the sewer and meet the resistance. Prices goes with them and Soap and Yuri are sent on a separate part of the plan.
We move through the streets, holding position and ducking, shooting at snipers and squads. At one point we have to stay prone as we watch men pass by only inches away. We then come to a square and see Price on the opposite rooftop.
We then ambush the men in the square and start fighting along through the massed enemies.
We then have to take out a tank with a rocket launcher and follow Soap again.
We continue to weave through the fight, there are lots of resistance fighters on the streets and a huge battle is going on, we weave through it being guided by Soap.
We end up inside a church, where we are told by price to wait for a few hours until the meeting.

Mission 12
Yuri
With everything in place to blow Makarov's head off as he arrives we find the gang waiting.
We are across the road, in the church tower overlooking the hotel where Makarov's meeting is to take place. Price is on top of the hotel and we are to provide support as he abseils into the hotel. We snipe some guards and then Prices gets inside. We can see from across the road that he is in trouble. We have to help him fight some enemies, then we find our contact tied to a chair with a bomb strapped to him. Makarov comes over our radio and it appear that we have fell into a trap. It also appears that Makarov is old friends with Yuri. Soap and Yuri's vantage point is also compromised and they leap out the window as a bomb goes off. The abuse that the men in Call of Duty get is above and beyond. They manage to survive a fall down from the church, crashing through scaffolding.
Soap is injured, again. We have to carry him. Price shoots and we just have to run to the destination.
We are attacked and have to fend off enemies, running for an escape. The resistance come to our aid.
They carry soap inside, and we are told to press on a bleeding point. Soap tells Price that Makarov knows Yuri before he dies. Price punches Yuri down a flight of stairs and asks why he knows Makarov.
We see Yuri and Makarov in 1996, helping Zakhaev escape from a bad arms deal.
Then we see Yuri and Makarov in the middle east in 2011, when the nuke goes off in the first Modern Warfare.
Then we are at the massacre in Russia, Makarov knows that Yuri has betrayed him, and shoots him. Leaving him for dead as he starts the massacre we crawl after him and try and shoot at the gunmen as they wade through the civilians. Yuri collapses and we see paramedics work on him.
Price let's Yuri live for now.

Mission 13
Yuri tells Price of a nearby castle that Makarov uses as a weapons cache, Yuri believes that Makarov may be using it as his base. We are going to attack it.
We start by parachuting into the area.
We land near the castle and again are following Price around, sneaking under trucks, planting c4 and avoiding patrols. We reach the security office and then get down into some jail cells. Price takes out the lights and we use night vision.
Running around in the dark we are eventually rumbled and flares are set of to counter our night vision. We come out onto some scaffolding and plant more C4. Then we go inside and blow through a wall. We climb up inside the wall and find some men in a control room. On the screen is the Russian president, Makarov is still trying to get the codes from him. It seems his men are trying to find the presidents daughter to use as leverage.
Things become heated as the guards discover the bodies and we are now fighting our way through the castle. I come to a courtyard and have to support Price from above as he fights through. We then blow up the c4 we planted earlier.
We now storm back into the courtyard and fight our way to a jeep. Then a rushed and chaotic emplaced gun ride until we fall over the edge of a cliff, no matter, we have parachutes.

Mission 14
scorched earth.
Back with frost in Berlin, now racing to rescue the Russian president's daughter from Makarov's forces who are closing in on her.
The mission starts with Frost recovering from being in an explosion, which then cuts to 20 minutes earlier. The team is coming in by helicopter and are attacked. They land on the roof of the attackers and take them out, moving inside the building and then out onto the roof. We see enemies on the roof of the target building and then use snipers rifles to clear them. The helicopters then land another team on the roof and we have to aid them, sniping the enemies that appear.
We then have to use air support to take out three tanks that are approaching.
Granite team then goes in after the daughter, though contact with them is lost. We now have to take over the mission.
We run down onto the street and then fight our way along. We take out a tank and then have to follow some friendly tanks down a large open street.
As we are moving down the street a bomb goes off and a tower block falls on us.
This was the point we came into earlier.
We have to progress through the damaged building, then out onto the street and into the target building at last.
We make our way up to the room where the daughter is and then, she is captured right before our eyes.

Mission 15
Back to Price who is going after the president himself.
We are storming some kind of bunker.
We come out and find we are in a place that looks fairly cold, air support is aiding us in a big fight in clearing. We move along the large open construction site like area fighting, a helicopter gives air support. A bomb is set off to open the way into the complex again and we come in through a door we make ourselves.
Not far inside we find the daughter, it may be too late and the threat of harm to her may have made the president give Makarov the codes to launch the Russian nukes.
She tells us that they have taken her father deeper into the mine. We press on and rappell down a large shaft. we come to a reinforced door and have to blow a hole in the roof rather than the solid door.
Inside a bullet time sequence sees us kill the presidents guards and recover him.
We have to hold position until the helicopter comes in under heavy fire.
Then get into the helicopter, half the cast of delta force are killed in the process, though Yuri and Price get away in the chopper with the president.

Mission 16
The war is over, the Russian and American presidents sit down to negotiate for peace.
Price is going after Makarov.
The mission starts with Yuri and Price in the back of a van, which is under heavy fire, they are wearing Juggernaut suits. We move down a street towards a hotel fighting heavy enemy resistance. We enter the hotel and go up some escalators into a lift. two helicopters arrive, one goes to the roof to extract Makarov, the other starts shooting at the lift. We have to shoot it down and it crashes into the lift. The armor is damaged and we have to abandon it.
We jump to another lift and then go up towards the roof.
We now have to fight through heavy fire to get to Makarov, we chase him through the hotel, until we have him in our sights. A helicopter blasts the side of the hotel and we manage to hang on only just as part of it collapses. Yuri is impaled on a spike. We run after Makarov and chase him to the copter as he almost gets away, we have to jump to catch onto the chopper.
Price kills the chopper pilots and in the process a gun goes off and damages the chopper. It crashes. As we climb from the wreckage Makarov does to, we have some button pressing to make Price fight Makarov, Makarov gets the upper hand and is about to shoot Price, when Yuri makes a last appearance to save the day. Price then punches Makarov about and wraps a cord around his neck. The glass ceiling of the hotel gives and Makarov is hanged. Price lights his cigar at last. The credits roll.

8 hours 10 minutes
also about 5:30 hours on multiplayer at this point in time to rank up 335 achievement points for one play-through of the campaign on hardened difficulty.

Gears of war 3 Notes

2011-12-03T19:47:00.001-08:00

As the game boots for the first time a whole host of messages are displayed, suggesting I am getting unlocks for playing previous campaigns.
starting a new campaign I choose Hardcore Mode

The campaigns starts with Marcus in a cell again, echoes of the first game, at first I think this is a flashback, though it isn't. You have to wonder why they would imprison a soldier when the human race is on the brink of extinction.
Anya appears and rips the door open with Jack, Marcus tells her that she is going to get into a lot of trouble for this. She tells him that things have changed, she gives him his uniform and tells him to follow her.

Controls
Left and right analogue sticks for movement and camera as always.
Left trigger is aim down sights.
Left bumper shows your current objective.
Right bumper is reload.
Right trigger is fire.
Dpad changes between four weapons you can carry.

Short cut scene, as we are now in control, quickly into the action it seems. it turns out that this is a dream scene as when Marcus walks towards Anya she starts to echo and fade away, a door behind her opens and we are outside Marcus's house, which we went to in previous games. Adam Phoenix is there and he asks why Dom and Marcus have come to rescue him. He tells them that they need to save his research.
We go down the hill a little and fight against incoming locust soldiers.
This is still a dream and the environment is making itself as we approach, rising like smoke and becoming solid.
The locust evaporate back into smoke when you shoot them.
Marcus speaks while we fight, telling us that his father was always more concerned with his work than him. Saving the work while Marcus saved him.
A corpser appears and I shoot at it. Though this isn't a fight we have to win. The corpser is pulled away into the sky and a cut scene shows a Raven coming in to extract the gang. It is hit by a missile and slams around knocking into the house. A pillar falls and lands on Adam Phoenix, apparently killing him.
Marcus wakes on a ship, a voice is telling him to report to CIC.

Act 1: Chapter one: Anchored.
I start in my bunk, a corridor and some bunk rooms.
A man talks about stalks and polyps, which don't sound like fun.
There is a man blocking the corridor, I find a door that opens and Dom is behind it. A cut scene shows that he has taken to gardening as a side job, explaining that if he doesn't grow it they don't eat it.
Marcus gets him to follow.
Back in the corridor we hear over the tannoy that the raven is coming back, which isn't expected.
I can now go further along the corridor, on the next deck I see a lambent stalk rising out of the water, a twisted tree like structure.
A new Cog is introduced, Jace, an African American man with dreadlocks.
Up on the next deck there are more soldiers and people milling around.
I find Anya and a cut scene starts.
It seems that the Raven has found chairman Prescott, the leader who it seems has been absent for the last 18 months.
Things immediately go bad. A door opens up a head and scorpion like glowing monsters come through killing a soldier.
We are into the action proper. Shoot the scorpions, though a door and up some stairs for more scorpions.
Then up onto the deck proper. Where we find humanoid skull faced lambent creatures. There are also huge tentacles which seem to be depositing the lambent on board the deck.
I have to kill a few of the new lambent and then find that the deck lift needs raised to allow the raven to land.
I do this and a cut scene starts.
Prescott does indeed waltz back in as if nothing had happened, he wants to speak to Hoffman, who has also been gone a while, though he is helping survivors at a place called Anvil gate.
Prescott it seems is a busy boy and has a mission for us. He asks who is in command and wants to speak with them.
Prescott gives Marcus a disk to watch, telling him that he will want to see it.
More Lambent appear in a fairly square fight box area.
Now we have to go up some stairs to get to CIC to view Prescott's message.
Inside the CIC we view the disk, it shows Adam phoenix, he is talking to Marcus, though this is obviously a message he recorded to send to Marcus. He tells us that he is a prisoner of the locust. He understands what is going on, and tells us that the imulsion is the problem. It is infected and the planet is dying. He knows a way to fix things, or so he tells us.
The disk is garbled at the end, Anya thinks she can fix it. A huge explosion rocks the ship, looks like it's time to kill some more lambent.
A new addition here is the ability to click the left stick when zoomed in on an enemy to get your squad-mates to target that particular enemy.
We fight our way back through the same area we have came through to get back under deck.
A fire extinguisher is needed as there is fire blocking the way.
I pick it up and can use it in the normal way.
After putting the fires out, we have to fight some more lambent to the captains quarters. Where a cut scene starts.
Prescott is wounded, the captain dead. The lambent are attacking the hangar deck and we need to go and save the helicopters. Marcus tells Prescott to stay put, he wants a chat later.

Act 1 chapter 2 Abandon Ship
We move though some of the ship corridors, fighting the polyps, then more lambent locust in the ships galley. Now into a store room.
I come out into the hangar bays and fight our way to the control room, past the two ravens.
One is lifted out of the bay by the use of a switch. We are going to help the other when it is attacked by a huge tentacle.
We have to shoot at the tentacle until it vanishes. Then fight our way back up to the lift controls to get back up on deck. We now fight our way through a new area of deck, just off from the one we fought in earlier. This time the deck is on fire and we have to turn water valves to clear the fire.
After turning two valves we have to use the extinguisher again.
As we do a cut scene kicks in. The lambent leviathan rises from the sea and starts chewing the deck. It's tentacles land either side of the gang and the deck gives way. They all fall down and it's lucky that nobody is killed.
They are now down below again and need to get back up on deck to fight.
Cole and Baird come over the radio, seems they are back near the boat and can see what is going on.
We come into an area of below deck and the tentacles rip a cavern through the middle of it. We have to fight some lambent across on the other side of the cavern, then the tentacles send in some scorpions to attack us. After a few waves a barrier drops down and makes a bridge for us to progress. Cole tells us to get the beast towards the front of the ship.
Marcus decides to use something called Silverbacks, which are in the maintenance bay to prod the beast towards the front of the ship.
we have to run before the tentacles crush us up on deck.
Now we get to the silverback bay. These are robotic exoskeletons filled with big guns and rockets. We can move around in them and emplace the silverback to shoot rockets.
The monster appears and starts chewing up the deck.
We have to shoot it in the eye, then the mouth. Driving it towards the front of the ship.
This is repeated a few times, with the monster moving forward a little each time. Lambent and scorpions run interference.
Eventually a cut scene kicks in and we see Baird drop a container full of tickers onto the monsters head from a bridge over the river.
This blows up the monster, along with the front of the boat. Marcus and Dom can be seen running and jumping over the side for their lives.

Act 1 : Chapter 3 : Homecoming.
One hour earlier.
Cole Baird, Carmine and a female called Sam land in a Raven, they are looking for supplies.
We land in what looks like a small town by the sea and enter the desolated place to investigate. There are bodies lying around, it looks like there has been a fight here recently.
We come to a gate and a light shines on us.
A cut scene shows Cole negotiate for food with a stranded, he isn't very friendly towards the COG soldiers. He does offer a side of bacon for Sam however. Cole declines, despite Baird wanting to take the deal.
We are told that there is another settlement along the way. we decide to go and investigate, there are enemies along the way, we are warned.
I find a cap??
Kicking open a gate we head into a playground.
As we go through a huge tentacle burst out of the ground and spews out a large humanoid monster.
There are three sets of tentacles to deal with, all sending out pods with various types of lambent inside.
We climb through some razor wire and into a new area.
Here we fight more stalks and lambent in the car park of the grocery store.
now inside the store.
We make our way through the fairly barren, already long ago looted store fighting locust as we go.
At the rear of thee store there is a large fridge blocking the way, we need to shoot out a crate which is blocking a switch. This opens a room with a Silverback like device, only it has no weapons. It is a version of a forklift truck. We come to a crate of supplies and the loader can pick it up. Now we have to break out through the loading bay doors into the loading bay proper. Here we have another fight. We then have to knock over some cars to make way with the loader. Placing the crate on a smoking beacon brings in the raven to pick it up.
Now we are off to investigate a warehouse, where there may be more stranded we can trade with.
We come to an area which is falling into the emulsion below, it looks unsteady, yet it takes our weight.
Now we come to a large square where lambent are attacking the stranded. We help. There are larger locust which shoot lava balls. Also snake like wriggling things that explode when they get near.
We meet the stranded and a woman shows us inside, she tells us that there is some ammo we can trade for.
We walk through the settlement, we are near the stadium where Cole played at and a lot of people know of him.
We come out the other side at a dock area and find the ammo. We radio the raven to come and pick it up. Now we are going on towards the stadium, which we can see in the distance.
More fighting on the docks. Now we come to the stadium and meet up with some more Cole fans who show us his statue. As we are about to be shown to the boss of the stranded at the stadium the lambent start to attack inside the stadium.
We get to choose the upper path or lower path.
Inside we fight some more lambent.
Now a cut scene, Cole visits his old locker room, there is a nostalgic scene where Cole reminisces about the glories of the past. It turns into nightmare as Cole finds himself on the pitch with a giant lambent stalk.
We have a semi game-play, semi cut scene moment where we have to barge past some lambent, pick up a ball shaped bomb and them slam it into the stalk. Which is then blown up.
Cole is picked up the by the rest of the gang and we are to go and look for the leader of the stadium stranded.
As we do so the radio tells us that the ship with Marcus and Dom on is under attack.
We find the leader, she is a German spoken woman, with a scar on her cheek. She is very unhelpful.
Cole knows a way to the bridge, which we know the ship is going to pass under.
We make our way to a lift, which is, as usual a cage for us to survive in for a minute while they rise up.
Now we get on a zip line and make our way to the bridge.
On the bridge, yes more lambent to fight.
We come to a barrier, thinking it's stranded, the gang approach, however, it's the locust and they open fire.
We enter the fenced in settlement that is the bridge and fight through it. Up on top again we have to get to the where the ship will cross under in time.
Another choice moment, lower deck or catwalk.
I take catwalk, where we fight a few locust and then climb up a ladder and meet the others.
In cut scene we see the culmination of the fight with the leviathan from the other side. Baird is tasked with working out how to kill the leviathan and there is much dialogue from the group who haven't really got a clue.
Baird decides that the locust must have ordinance here, we are tasked with finding it.
we have to fight through an area of bridge filled with tickers, Baird thinks tickers may be the key.
Now we have a mortar crew to take care of. Then a locust zeppelin, which is made from a huge inflated creature appears and we have to take it out.
Mortars are left by the mortar crew which is handy.
We then progress through more of the bridge and come out on top again, here we can see the tickers in a box, that we know will get tipped on the leviathan's head. There are lots of locust in the way. When we reach the box a cut scene shows the gang tip it over the side and the tickers kill the leviathan. The gang are tipped off the bridge which is destroyed in the process.

Act 2 Shipwreck

Chapter 1 Hanover coast
We find Cole and the gang recovering in the shallows, Marcus and Dom are incommunicado. Cole sees locust heading for the shipwreck and we are to follow them.
We are in a more lush greener area. fighting locust that burst out of the ground as if being shot from geysers.
We fight through some enemies and then find Dom and Marcus. Marcus contacts Anya by radio and she is in trouble with Precsott. Marcus quickly explains to Cole and Baird what is going on and then we are attacked by more locust.
New locust weapons are underground creatures that dig under the ground in straight lines and come up underneath you.
I fight through to a large living siege catapult. Once the grubs around it are downed, we can use it to take out another two, then a brumak that appears.
We fight through to where Anya and Prescott are holed up under heavy fire.
In cut scene we find that Prescott is dying, just when he would have revealed the plot, how convenient, lessons from Lost? Anyway, he tells us that Marcus' father was working at a secret facility called Azura, which the locust Queen, Myrrah has captured in the past few days.
Prescott gives Marcus a hardware encryption key. Baird knows what it is for, a disc that Hoffman stole from Prescott. Baird was tasked with breaking the encryption but could not.
We now have a new goal, getting to Anvil gate and finding Hoffman and the disc.
Locust attack again.
Then a Brumak to take down.
In cut scene we see a portion of message Baird manages to get recovered, it shows that Adam was captured by Prescott and held captive at Azura. He also talks of something called the imulsion counter measure.

Chapter 2 House of sand
We come to the wreck of the gas barge that was shot down earlier. Marcus thinks it might be a good idea to commandeer one to get to Anvil gate.
We fight through a desert like area where a small corpser attacks. Then some more grubs and through a large locust door.
Now we have to run to avoid mortar fire.
Then take out the mortar crew.
we now can use the siege cannon to take on the reinforcements that arrive.
On a ridge the gang can see that the locust are excavating the whole area and seem to be building themselves a new home.
A barge settles down nearby and we set off to hijack it.
Here we have a stealth section, if we can stop the locust sounding an alarm, we can have far less locust to kill.
The sniper rifle is handy for this.
There are three horns, one guard at the first, then two at the others.
I give up and just fight the enemies that come when you get discovered, it's more fun, what is this Metal Gear Solid?
We go inside the locust stronghold.
Here we have a large shootout in an area described as trenches, though it looks more like an old Spanish fort.
Now we see a gasbag come in to land, though it sees us and starts dropping bombs.
We have to run from cover to cover in the trenches, avoiding deadly bomb bombardment.
We see a tower in the distance, Baird has picked up a locust gps device and managed to program it to send the gasbag to Anvil Gate, all we need to do now is reach the tower and get aboard a gasbag.
We come to a ticker assembly area and blow lots of grubs and tickers up.
A grub shuts in a room with a corpser.
Then we come a corpser boss battle. Baby corpsers are hatching from eggs. We shoot them and then the mother turns up. We have to shoot it in the eyes and then some of the medium corpsers appear.
Once all the eyes are shot out, the corpser runs around rampaging and you have to avoid it. Then run down a corridor.
A cut scene starts, we are outside at the gasbag station.
The locust Queen Myrrah is riding a large flying locust.
She sees Marcus and it appears she has plans for him as well.
She sends some smaller bugs to attack us, and flies off.
The smaller bugs are flying tickers.
We fight some more locust at the gasbag station.

Chapter 3 Airborne
Then up on top of the docking ring. Here we fight the crew of a barge and then get on it.
Baird programs the autopilot and we are heading for Anvil gate.
On the way we find a truck being attacked by two barges, it's Dizzy from the second game.
We descend on ropes and join his fight.
After taking out some grubs and theron guards we meet Dizzy, Hoffman is alive and well at Anvil Gate and he has the disc. We have to help Dizzy get some supplies from this depot and then get back on the barge. However a large contingent of grubs arrives an we have to fight a few reavers that land and shoot at us with rockets.
Back on the barge we go.

Chapter 4 Touchdown.
We are attacked by other barges and then Myrrah turns up on her flying bug. She shoots a huge laser light like weapon at us and the barge is knocked out of the air. It crashes, and everyone is ok. Hoffman appears and we are rescued and taken back to Anvil Gate. The grubs are on the way though in force.

Act 3 Chapter one Untouchable.
We get back to the anvil gate fort just in time to help in it's defense against the grub army.
We fight from the top of the gates for a while, then the gate is breached. Falling back to a second gate we do the same. Then finally in a garage we have a last stand.
The last resort is triggered, a plan which sees a large fuel tank being pushed into the courtyard and we have to shoot it. This blows up a lot of the grubs and the battle is won.
Hoffman and Marcus have their talk now. Hoffman was never impressed by Prescott and is even less so now. The disc is given to Baird to work on and he is also tasked with Getting the hammer of dawn back online.
Sam and Anya are trapped by the grubs outside and we have to go take a truck and rescue them.
we get a choice, to drive the truck or provide covering fire.
I choose to drive the truck, only you don't you ride in the back out to where Anya's vehicle has been overturned. Our truck is toppled and we have to fight our way back to the fort.
Lambent appear and it's a fairly confused chaotic fight.
A berserker lambent appears and Baird uses the hammer of Dawn on it. Only it doesn't kill it. We now have a boss battle with it, in the courtyard of the fort. It has a glowing bit in it's chest we have to shoot.
After a few shots to the chest it starts to leak imulsion, then imulsion gas and finally explodes.
In cut-scene we find the contents of the disc are the location of Azura, the secret facility. Seems that whatever is there is top secret as an artificial hurricane keeps people from visiting. Hoffman tells us of a sub, though we will need to fix it and fuel it.

Chapter 3 Breakneck run.
Marcus leaves Hoffman at Anvil Gate, Cole and Baird are sent to find supplies for the assault on Azura. Marcus, Dom, Anya and Sam head for a town called Mercy to collect fuel.
We have a fairly frantic set of driving sequences now, driving along, we are on the back of the trucks. Dizzy driving the tanker and two smaller vehicle escorts. Reavers attack first, then we have a few pipes to blow up to clear the road. Then we get some corpsers to fight, small ones then a short fight with a large one.
Now we get stuck in sand and have to defend against incoming grubs until we can get free.
Then we cut of a brumak's head using a wire between the vehicles.

Chapter 4 ghost town.
We move through the town, it is indeed a ghost town. We see a bomb on the pipeline, it has a motion sensor. Moving to it and holding X disarms it.
Moving on through the empty town I find and disarm another two charges. As Marcus disarms a third a shot rings out and blows up a pumpkin near him. In cut scene we find an old man who seems a bit mad, he tells us that everyone else is dead of some kind of fever that sent them mad. He runs off. We have to give chase.
I find him dead in the sewers, though we can hear a woman's voice, crying. When we find her, in cut scene she turns out to have turned lambent, suggesting that whatever is happening with the locust and the lambent is now spreading to humanity.
We now have a fight with a lot of lambent humans.
Back up on the surface Marcus tells Dizzy what is going on.
We come to a large square with a fountain in the middle. A man can be seen on a balcony waving to us. As we go over to him the lambent turn up. We have a large vulcan cannon which needs two people to operate, but certainly tears through the lambent. After clearing the ambush of fifty odd lambent we climb the ladders into the man's hideaway.

Chapter 5 Brothers to the end.
The man isn't much help as the lambent burst in and kill him. We are chased out of his hidey hole by another horde of lambent.
Then through the town until we reach a church.
Behind the church Dom finds Maria's family grave, and gives a touching message to her.
We then get the pumps working. This seems to stir the lambent up inside the church and they come spewing out. We have to go through the church and through the crypt. It's the quickest way back apparently.
Dizzy reports that the tanker is too holed to fill after our run through locust fire.
We come out onto the surface near the tanker and find the locust have arrived.
Lambent locust, human lambent and grubs all attack at once.

Act 4 Chapter 1
Ashes to ashes.
We run out of gas at a city which was leveled by the cog using the hammer of dawn in the early days of the war when it was thought that it might stop the locust.
We go in looking for fuel.
The city is filled with ash statues, that it seems were people running for their lives as the hammer struck, they were turned to ash where they stood by the intense heat.
We walk about amongst them and then enter a church, as we do a piano nearly falls on our heads.
Then a gun is rigged too go off. It appears that the people who live here, may be covering themselves in ash and standing still amongst the dead to hide.
We move on through the city and the ash man keeps setting off traps, such as exploding gas canisters.
We come to a point where we are hemmed in by two gun nests. Then lambent locust appear.
After fighting them off for the ash man, he comes to chat.
Griffin is the leader of the settlement and we are to go and see him about trade.
We are taken up in a lift and shown through the sky high township, with cable cars to Griffin.
Griffin is played by Ice T. He isn't happy about the COG at all.
He wants us to go and sort out his fuel supply problem, in return her will give us some fuel.
He holds Dizzy as hostage to make sure we comply.

Chapter 2 Hang em high
We move out into the crater where the hammer burst hit, which is huge.
Lambent attack in large numbers.
After fighting lots of lambent we come to Griffin's second tower.
In the lobby of the tower we have to find a switch to turn on the elevators, which all spew out lambent humans. Then we have to take the stairs.
We find a lift and push a car as a counterweight. Whilst on the lift something called a gunker crashes through the roof and we have to fight it at close quarters.
We get up onto the roof and find that the loaded fuel cable car is undamaged.
A cable is stuck, which is holding the cable car halted at the rooftop. We have to go down into the building a little way and cut the cable, then come back out onto the roof to the cable car. Lambent humans fight us all the way.
As we get back to the cable care Dizzy calls on the radio, Queen Myrrah has appeared with her beetle and is attacking.
She leaves and we can see lots of barges coming in to deliver grubs.
barges attack us as we come down in the cable car.
When we get back to the first tower there are lots of locust and everyone is being massacred. We fight through them and come to dizzy and Griffin. Griffin accuses the cog of being jinxes and storms off in a huff.
We have our fuel and it's time to head back to the shipyard.

Chapter 3 Batten down the hatches.
We arrive at the shipyard, it seems that Myrrah is tracking Marcus, she seems to want to stop him, though i'm not sure she is too serious about stopping him, maybe making a show of it, but secretly wants him to succeed.
She sends some nasty looking new locust after us.
At the shipyard we have to fight our way in through the gates.
Inside the shipyard we find some old ships, there are huge webs covering them which look ominous.
We come out into an open area of dock and a large centipede type enemy is released by the locust.

Chapter 4 Bon voyage
We come to the sub we are going to use to try and sneak into Azura.
It has a cracked rotor, so we need the parts, we also need to fuel it.
We get a choice.
I choose to search for the rotor first.
We go through and meet some wretches and tickers in small room and then some theron guards outside. We have to push down some carts filled with shells to blow up some emplaced guns.
Back inside we go up in a lift.
More fighting and we come to the rotor, we have to use the walker forklift to take it back to the sub.
Locust of course get in the way.
Back at the sub dizzy starts fitting the rotor and we now have to go and get the fuel.
There are some cog tags at the first room you come to after starting the fuel mission.
I fight through this large room out onto the docks again. There is a ship here and it has the fuel we need sitting on the deck.
We have to storm the locust controlled deck, using a ramp that need moved into position. Then once on board more locust arrive. We have to use a crane to pick up the fuel, then the locust try and blow it. Lots of them arrive from doors and by barge to run interference.
Eventually once they are cleared a door opens up back to the sub.
Now we have to escort the sub out of the dock into the water, a series of doors opens up, each one holds an assortment of locust varieties.
After a last bunch of locust the special queens guard appears.
These guys have special armor that means they need to be killed by explosive fire.
The centipedes join them for a good fight.
I eventually realize that shooting the tail of the centipede kills it. The front sections are armored.
We now flood the dry dock and the sub is launched.
Anya calls Cole, she can't tell them that Dom is dead.
We

Chapter 6 watery grave.
We find ourselves in the sub, manning gun pods on the side of it.
Dizzy is driving.
We are attacked by fish, and have to fight them, then we hide from them in the deep turning off the searchlights.
Now we are attacked by a large fish, it chases us through a minefield, and we have to shoot at it and also the mines.
We are then chased by the leviathan into a cave and have to shoot it in the mouth before it kills us. We then move through the cave and find that the artificial hurricane also extends underwater. We survive it and find that Azura has defenses. Torpedo turrets have to be taken out. We blow open a set of doors we come to then more torpedoes and turrets.

Act 5
Chapter 1
Home away from home.
We find a dock and land, Marcus tells Dizzy to take the sub out to a safe distance and wait, it might be their only way out.
We find that there are a lot of dead civilians in the water around the dock.
I am attacked by lots of locust in the train station. It seems that Azura was to be a safe haven for the elite of Sera, evacuated to this supposedly impregnable facility to live out the war in safety. Seems to have been a rubbish plan as the locust got in anyway.
We fight to the train and then Adam Fenix speaks to us. He is trapped in his lab in a hotel tower. He tells us that the imulsion is a living organism, it is infecting everything like a parasite, locust and human. Adam has a way of destroying the imulsion, however Myrrah wanted him to adapt it to not harm the locust. He tell us that the imulsion is reaching a critical stage in it's life cycle and it will wipe out all life on Sera if left to reach this phase.
He tells us to get through a maintenance tunnel and head along the beach to the hotel tower.
We now come to a trenches like section and fight the usual assortment of locust.
Then into another part of the maelstrom facility. If we can bring down the maelstrom, Cole and the reinforcements can come in.
We progress through the beach and storage like areas of the Azura facility.
Now we reach the maelstrom generator building, we have three generators to shut down in the basement.
We reach the basement and Adam tells us that there are three switches we need to hit in order. Marcus tells him that Dom is dead, Adam promises that they will have a future and everything isn't in vain.

Chapter 2 Blackout
The three switches are switched fairly easily, however the maelstrom continues. Seems that the locust have rigged a backup. Adam tells us to blow the coolant and that will cause the generators to overheat. We will have to get out fast though.
The generator core is a large cylinder, we have five switches to pull. Locust appear around the sides and on the platforms of the cylinder to run interference. Once they are dealt with the switches pulled, we have forty odd seconds to leg it back out of the place.
A cut scene shows the maelstrom building blowing up and the hurricane ebbing away to reveal bright sunshine. Cole and Baird arrive with a navy ship they have picked up. Marcus tells them that Dom is dead to ruin the fun and then they all go to get revenge. Even Jack the little cutting robot is back.

Chapter 3 Shattered paradise
We get air support for a little while here, until it is taken out by a catapult. Also jack moves around shocking the locust to distract them for us.
The catapult has to be taken out so we can use air support. I find it and then some barges arrive, we use the locust's own catapult against them. There are more catapults to be found.
We move through the hotel, there are lots of dead civilians. The locust killed everyone other than Adam. Adam is about to tell us about Myrrah, but Marcus tells him to wait.
We have to take out another catapult crew, then blow a dam which kills another two catapults.
Inside the hotel again Adam tells us that his weapon is a wave of some kind that will kill of lambent cells in everyone, which are multiplying.
We move down a long corridor and fight a lot of locust.
Cog tags at the end of the long hall with signs for rose station.
We come out onto a terraced area and find the last siege beast.
Many locust later we kill a barge and push the siege beast into the sea.

Chapter 4 Threshold
We come to the tower where Adam is being held. It is huge.
There is a huge ornamental garden out front and we have to fight our way through it.
We then have to defend against the lambent who arrive on mass on our tails.

Chapter 5 Ascension
We are in the tower and have to get to the top where Adam is.
We progress through the hotel for a bit undisturbed, then we meet locust. Fighting through the lush hotel we reach some lifts. Then the lambent arrive while Jack gets the lifts working.
As we go up in the lifts we shoot at locust who are trying to kill us. Our lift falls and we end up on top of another lift. Now up high in the tower we are only a few floors from Adam. Heavy locust resistance is met. Eventually Myrrah appears on her bug, smashing through the window. Nothing I shoot seems to be hurting the bug, so it seems we just have to avoid it for now. Running up a few flights of stairs I avoid being cooked by it's heat beam.
We reach the roof and Myrrah has us trapped, Baird sees a statue on the ceiling that has a counterweight, it seems it can be brought down on top of Myrrah.
We have to release three cables which brings down the weight on the bug, there is no sign that Myrrah was still on it's back.
We are chased into a lift by lambent stalks.
The lift doors are guarded by locust, Adam warns us to take a side exit through service shafts.
There is a cog tag behind some crates just outside the left doors.
we come out and ambush the locust waiting for the lift, then fight some that have a turret in the corridor.
We have to go into two rooms at the side of Adam's lab and disable an electric laser security grid in front of his door.
We finally get inside to Adam.
He starts doing stuff with his machines. He tells us that the imulsion was the original start to the locust coming above ground. It drove them from their warren's.
Baird is upset that it seemed the government knew that emergence day was coming and didn't warn the people. Adam tells him that it was only him that knew. He gives Baird a disc. Seems to be foreshadowing that Adam won't survive for long.
We have to leave as the locust are back. Back out in the corridor there are hordes of them, then lambent. The turret comes in handy and we kill them all. Down the corridor we get into the lift.

Chapter 6 Reckoning
We come out onto the roof of the tower, the device for destroying the imulsion is there. We have a lot of lambent and locust to deal with. Carmine appears on a Raven and he gives us covering fire with the emplaced gun.
Once we clear the roof Myrrah appears and knocks out the Raven.
Now we have to shoot her bug in the mouth. Which seems to damage it now.
We have to wear it down, shooting it in the mouth and avoiding it's heat beam. Then it falls and while on the ground we can use the hammer of Dawn on it.
It also attacks the machine and if not stopped breaks in and Kills Adam causing a game over.
After wearing it down a cut scene starts. Lambent appear en masse. The machine fires and a blue light emanates from it. This kills the lambent stone dead. Adam comes out and tells us that he has too many lambent infected cells and that he will die. He asks Marcus to live for him, then dies, crumbling to dust in his arms.
Myrrah appears from the ruins of her bug and Marcus stabs her.
We see some scenes around Sera as locust and lambent are all killed by the wave.
Marcus appears and takes off his armor and sits down. Anya comes to him and tells him that she is there for him. He asks what is left and she tells him that they have a tomorrow for the first time.

14 hours
355 achievement points

Infamous 2 Notes

2011-09-20T05:47:00.001-07:00

Infamous 2 Notes

The first option that appears is to continue your Infamous 1 story, with a choice of either good karma or bad.
I choose to continue with good karma.
I get level 1 good karma, extra xp and extra energy storage for having completed the first game.

We get a comic book recap of the first story.
Cole a bike courier is at the center of a blast from a package he was carrying.
The city is quarantined and bad guys start showing up.
Cole meets Kessler, himself from the future, who has come from an alternate timeline, where a huge beast rampaged through the world. Cole wasn't ready for him in that world and came back to toughen himself up in the hope of altering the past.
We are now still in this training process, waiting for the beast to appear and hoping that Cole is ready. An agent named Lucy Quo has arrived with Cole, she worked with someone who was involved with the creation of the raysphere, the device that gave Cole his powers. Lucy wished to aid Cole in his preparations. Zeke, Cole's friend from the first game is also present.

As Cole is about to get on a boat and go to another city nearby with Zeke and Lucy the city starts to explode and it looks like the beast is here early.

Controls
Usual analogue sticks for movement and camera.
L1 is aim
R1 is shoot a lightning bolt or static thrusters while airborne.
X is jump
Square is throw grenade.

Mission 1
I leave the boat and go to see what is going on. I am on a pier and there is a locked gate we have to zap with lightning to break down. People are running everywhere.
A building can be seen collapsing in the distance and a car comes flying out of the mess and smashes into a nearby boat causing a huge explosion.
A few more meters closer to the city we can see the giant flaming beast, he looks similar to the human torch, only one hundred meters tall.
I am prompted to shoot in his direction to attract his attention. He responds by throwing a huge statue at us and coming closer.
We now fight the beast, shooting him in the head with lightning. He makes us fly in the air using some kind of gravity weapon and tries to suck us into a vortex. We get chances to shoot at him in between trying to stay clear.
After a while a piece of his head is blown off and we then get prompted to use an ionic storm by pressing down on the dpad.
This brings a lightning storm down on the beast head and he sinks into the sea.
We are now prompted to go back to the boat. As we do so the beast reappears and uses it's gravity wave to hold us floating again. We are grabbed in it's hand and can only shoot at it. We then get the prompt to use the ionic storm again. This hurts Cole and drains him.

In cut scene we see that Cole was saved by Zeke and Lucy, taken away on the ship.
The beast simply regenerated and carried on.
Cole is devastated by his failure and after some wallowing and angry scenes gets himself together and they flee to New Marais, to hopefully get more prepared for round two with the beast.
Zeke makes Cole a sword like weapon called the amp.

Mission 2
As we approach New Marais a gun battery can be made out. Cole gets out into the swamp and goes to take out the guns so they can approach safely.
We can hover over longer gaps by using static to thrust with, by pressing R1.
Some enemies appear and are easily shot with lightning bolts.
We can recharge our energy from electricity supplies in the environment.
The first karma choice appears. There is a bridge, which we can lower by charging up it's machinery. If we overload it, it will blow up the enemies as well. Also the civilians.
I choose not to kill the civilians.
I am given a good karma opportunity to heal some hurt civilians.
I move through the small township, zapping soldiers until mortar fire comes from a riverboat.
Shooting a fuel tank near the boat blows it up and sinks the riverboat.
I now have to make my way across the water using the debris. Cole dies if he falls in the water. His own electricity shorting out.
Someone named Bertrand makes a broadcast, he is the leader of the milita and he is using the threat of the beast to make his own martial law. we see this piece of information on a tv screen.
We now are introduced to the grind wires, which were great fun in the last game.
There is some emplaced guns we have to deal with.
The mission ends when we reach the edge of the city.
Zeke and Lucy bring the boat in. Lucy is impressed with Cole not killing the civilians.

Mission 3
New Marais is a fairly lawless place anyway after a flood devastated it.
The militia are only making it worse.
We can throw electricity grenades.
It isn't long before we are getting shot at in the city.
Lucy is with us and she shoots at enemies.
We have to get a blast shard which is being guarded by milita.
They are on a roof and there are about ten of them. Once they are downed we can pick up the blast shard.
I get the opportunity to save a citizen who is being mugged by militiamen.
When I pick up the shard, Wolf the scientist calls, he is in trouble. A large explosion is seen on the other side of the city and blue trails can be seen shooting into the air.
We now have to make our way there through heavy militia fire.
When we get there we speak to wolf, who recognizes us as Kessler and is confused.
Wolf has made a rayfield inhibitor, which can take away powers the same way that the raysphere gave them. Cole thinks he can use this on the beast to weaken it.
However we need to ingest the power from more blast cores before we can use the RFI.
Cole ingests the blast core that we just picked up and it gives him a new power.

Mission 4
Zeke finds Cole unconscious and wakes him up and we have to learn about our new power.
We now have the ability to pick up objects and hurl them using our powers.
I have to defeat a militiaman using a thrown object and throw a car.

Mission 5
Lost and Found
Wolf is missing. We need to find his carrier position, Which is on top of the clock tower.
Wolf used carrier pigeons to convey messages.
We hear a message from Wolf, seems there are lots of these pigeons to find.
Also the blast shards, which we need to collect three of to progress.
Pressing L3 shows up nearby blast shards.
I go around collecting a few. They give you some more powers if you collect them.
I also find another pigeon.

Mission 6
Mission are seen on the map as white dots. Going to them and pressing R1 starts them.
Zeke tells us that a good and bad character has contacted him asking for our help. This is a simple choice to make, since we are being good, I go to the good character and do their mission.
I have to save some civilians that milita men are terrorizing.

User generated content is introduced. Missions can be created and uploaded by users.
I get to play one made by the creators of the game.

Mission 7
We are to generate new powers by stressing our body in combat.
Here we have to kill six militia men. Then we get pincer bolts which sends out three blasts at once which converge on the target.

Mission 8
I have to meet an electrician on a roof.
He tells me about overcharging. This is where we take on a lot of energy, but we must stay in the air on the grind lines otherwise we blow up.

Mission 9
We think that Wolf has been taken by Bertrand, the leader of the milita.
Bertrand is to make a speech at a church. Cole plans to snatch him and find out where Wolf is.
We attend the Speech, Bertrand is an older man, with a large cutlass. He seems madder than a bag of weasels. He talks about Cole and as Cole is getting ready to snatch Bertrand some monsters turn up and attack Bertrand as well. We have to fight these mutant clawed creatures and then give chase to Bertrand who makes his escape in a limo. We have to chase the limo using grind wires.
Once I catch up with the limo a cut scene shows a relaxed Bertrand ignore Cole and set a helicopter on him. We have to fight the copter and knock it out of the sky with lightning bolts.

Mission 10
New Marais tea party.
Bertrand has supply boats docked, we are to get on them, take out the guards and throw the supplies overboard.

Mission 11
Bomb Scare
A man tells us of an object stuck to the wall of a building. We are to investigate.
As we do it blows up and kills a lot of people. another one is close by. We can defuse it by draining the electricity out of it. We then collect a blast shard from the bomb.

Mission 12
Wolfe hunt
we are to follow one of Bertrands men who is in a Casino.
We chase him across the town to where Wolfe is being held.
We are to take out roadblocks on the escape route and Lucy will go in, get Wolfe and drive him out.
After the first roadblock is taken care of I am prompted to go to the next.
At this roadblock we find all the milita dead. A large insect like creature is burrowing under the ground and popping up to now attack us.
It is called a ravager and we have to take it down.
Once done we go back to Lucy and stand on the back of the truck while they drive away. The milita attack in large numbers and we have to defend the truck. We can get energy from the truck.
As the mission reaches a crescendo a large lorry rams the truck. In cut scene we see that Wolfe is dead and Lucy captured.

Mission 13
Desperate times
Cole is getting despondent again. Zeke has seen something out in the swamp that we should investigate.
In the swamp we investigate shacks. There are some new charging exploding mutant enemies out here. Which are my most hated type.
A new milita type with a chaingun appears.
We go to another shack guarded by all types of enemies so far.
As we search the shack some fighting can be seen nearby.
A female with superpowers is found, she is called Nix and can move very fast.
She also seem to be able to control oil, using it to coat enemies.
She wants us to help her take out some milita.
We follow her around shooting milita she traps in oil. She also wants us to cover banners of Bertrand in oil.
Once we have them all done, we light them on fire.
Now we take out all the enemies. Nix leave and gives us a blast shard.
Zeke asks if it's a good idea to play nice with someone so obviously insane. Cole feels that at the moment their agenda seems to align, though he obviously doesn't trust her.

Mission 14
Storm's coming
Zeke appears in a milita outfit and Cole doubts his spy routine. He is about to absorb a blast core which will knock him out for hours. He ask's Zeke if he will wake in a milita cell?
Zeke tells him not to be an ass, and he thought that their bad history was water under the bridge.
When we wake up we have a new power.
Ionic storm. This is a tornado of energy that we can send out ahead of us. We get it by killing certain milita men, they release an energy which gives us one charge of ionic storm.

Mission 15
Jail Break
A cop wants us to help free some police who have been imprisoned by milita.
We go to a location and find cops in a truck. Lots of milita to kill then open up the truck and the mission is done.

Mission 16
I meet up with Zeke and Nix to discuss the intel that Zeke has gained. He thinks Lucy is held in a nearby plantation. There are lots of other prisoners there and some of Bertrand's best men. Nix wants to load a car up with explosives and send it in the front door as a diversion while they go in and get Lucy. Zeke points out that this will probably roast alive lots of innocents. Zeke suggests freeing policemen and asking for their help. Nix wants nothing to do with a plan involving helping the police.
Looks like if we want to be good there is no choice at all. It also looks like we will be fighting with Nix soon.
I have two mission starts to choose from. Good and Bad.
I choose the good, to free the police.
There are three trucks to attack, and stop. Then free the police. Now we go to the plantation house. We have to clear the milita, then they start with mortars. We have another wave of milita and the three mortars to destroy then we get to free Kuo. She has been transformed and now looks like she has frost powers. She is not feeling great and we have to protect her as we leave. There are lots of pods and it appears that Bertrand has been making his own brand of super soldier.
We now have to escape to a car that Zeke is driving and the mission ends.

Mission 17
Changing the channel
We have to drain the power from five dishes around the main square so that Zeke can hack in his own signal to the large tv screens to silence Bertrands propaganda.
Simple enough, climb around until you are close enough then drain the dishes to complete the mission.

Mission 18
I am told to investigate the park where lots of milita are dressed as statues????
I fight them all and mission is done.

Mission 19
Crossfire.
I find some milita and mutants fighting and have to take on them both.

Mission 20
malpractice
I take a mission to retrieve some medical supplies that were stolen from a paramedic. There are four packages to retrieve, all guarded by milita.

Mission 21
Tourist trap
I have to take some pictures, of the vertical poles, a mugging and an abduction.

Mission 22
The sidekick

Mission 23
Tough Critic
I meet a cop who wants us to guard a milita man until he can get backup. We have to stand and listen to him abuse us for a minute to complete the mission. Nix calls and tells us to kill him while we are waiting.

Mission 23
those who trespass against us.
The milita are having a party in the cathedral, we have to clear them out.

Mission 24
I meet a woman who kisses us for helping her mother in the first game by sharing food.

Mission 25
Field Medicine
More paramedic supply retrieving.
We have to get a crate and take it back to a drop point. Which is harder than it seems.

Mission 26
Trick Photography
We have to take a picture of sin tower and a movie theatre.
Next a ravager mid charge, a helicopter and a downed milita man.
Of course to end the mission we must fight and kill them all.

mission 27
Going overboard.
More boats to deprive of supplies. This time in the swamp area.

Mission 29 Main Mission
Powering up ascension parish
The milita have broken a power link between transformers. We have to restore it.
We have to fire a tesla missile which acts like a flying vehicle, we can control. I have to guide it to a target some distance away. This seems to send electricity between the two transformers and we then have to activate the newly powered transformer. This is a simple defend the position mission. I trigger the transformer startup sequence and have to defend it while it boots up.
Enemies come in waves.
I have to repeat this, we are deep in the dark part of the city, with no power to refill our energy.
I have to repeat this three times.

Mission 30
Choppers vs Monsters
Two ravagers, monsters milita and a helicopter to take out.

Mission 31
six hostages paramedics need to be saved from milita capture.

Mission 32
Police Parade
Again 9 policemen have been taken by milita and the guarding milita need killing.

Mission 33 Main Mission Sacrifice
I go to a mission marker and a woman is calling for help. I find a woman tied up by her hands to a tree, there are lots of the the wing armed monsters around. I have to free her by shooting at the wrist bindings once the monsters are cleared out.
She tells us that her uncle is in trouble and asks us to help him as well. I have to follow her, along the way the milita and monsters appear at certain points along the journey.
I find her uncle and he is suspicious of Cole but seems reasonable about them having the common goal of getting rid of the milita.
A huge monster turns up, like a rhinobug.
It shoots snot and has a long tail that can latch on to you. It seems easier to kill that the ravagers though.
Once done the resistance are now on side for the moment.

Mission 34
In the name of science
A scientist wants swamp monster samples for analysis.
We have to go into the graveyard and lure a bunch of ten lobsterarm monsters back to a specific location, then kill them.

Mission 35 not human, conduit main mission
Lucy Kuo is back, she seems traumatized, but she definitely has frost powers. Cole tells her that he can help her.
He encourages her to show him what she knows already. She can fly in a similar way to Nix. Flitting through the air as a stream of frosty smoke.
She can use frost to hold enemies and we can shoot them like with Nix.
She tells us of a blast core that might be located around here, she has a picture and we have to find the location, inside the location is another pic. More monsters to fight.
Find this one then Kuo tells us of the plague that hit Empire city now being in New Marais.
Another photo location to find, then a ravager and some other mutant enemies.
This time the ravager seems to spawn bugs out of pods.
When it's killed we get a blast core from the vault.

Mission 36 main mission
I go to zeke and absorb the blast core, he appears to have a cough and Cole fears the plague.
After the blast core we now have improved static thrusters. We can fly for longer and can use the electricity in cars to jump higher.
We also have the sniper precision aim feature, by holding up on the dpad we can zoom in.

Mission 37 Overcharge
another wire gliding puzzle, rooftop to rooftop without getting off the correct path.

Mission 38 Grave danger
The graveyard is the scene of a battle between milita, monsters and resistance. We step in and take down the monsters and militia helping the resistance.

Mission 39 Life Insurance
A woman starts of a spiel about life insurance then seems to turn on us and set a bunch of monsters on us. I kill them all. Strangely enough the woman gets eaten by one of the big monsters she seems to bring to the area.

Mission 40 Enemy surveillance
I have to follow a fast moving lone enemy back to it's base and fight a horde of monsters.

Mission 41 Good Deed
We meet with Kuo who tells us that an area of the city is being attacked by monsters. We have to follow her to the areas and kill all the monsters.

Mission 42 Firing squad
A bunch of 6 civilians are being lined up and shot on a rooftop. I go up and make sure the milita are the ones to fall off the roof.

Mission 43 Enemy surveillance.
Chase the monsters to their base and fight them again.

Mission 44 Stories of the past Main Mission
We meet Nix, she tells us of how she grew up in the shanties in the swamps, it isn't a fun tale.
She wants to show us something out in the swamp, for this we need a boat. We go to the mansion from earlier, kill lots of milita and steal a boat.
Cole does not seem to think this may be a trap. If nix strands Cole out at sea he will have no way of getting back to land.
Nix drives us through the swamp until we come to a milita outpost on an island. It seems that the milita are dug in here fighting the swamp monsters. It may be that the milita are trying to keep the swamp monsters out of the city. We come to another island after fighting lots of milita and swamp monsters and all the milita are dead.
Eventually the milita killer makes itself known, it's a bigger version of a ravager named a hive lord.
I kill it the same way as the ravager, it has the same attack patterns. Nix then tells us to be still as a whole bunch of ravagers appear out of the ground on a nearby island. We move into fog and a huge monster can be heard in the distance. Nix hides the boat in the fog and the dinosaur sized beastie moves away.
In cut scene Nix takes us to a huge crater in the ground, with a pillar in the middle. It is the same crater as the raysphere made in empire City.
Nix tells the story, Bertrand brought a huge group of people into the blast radius of a raysphere and triggered it with him in the center, this gave him the energy of the people and killed them in the process. Nix survived because she was a conduit as well. This means that Bertrand has powers and may be significantly more powerful than Cole. Nix takes us back to New Marais.

Mission 45 enduring freedom
Four people have been stuck up at the edge of the swamp by the milita as sacrifices to the swamp monsters. We have to kill the milita and save the people. Kuo helps on this mission.

Mission 46 Transferring Power Main Mission
Kuo, Zeke and Nix meet Cole on a rooftop to discuss things. Zeke has found out that the machinery for controlling powers is in fort Phillipe, which is a huge castle like stronghold.
Cole thinks that even with all their powers they could not cope with the amount of militia in a good defensive position. They would need an army. Zeke suggests the rebels. Kuo tells Cole that they would need to win their hearts and minds first to get them to help in such a dangerous assault. Here we are asked to choose good and evil choices. Kuo tells us to steal the medicines from the Milita which they obviously have since none of them have the plauge. Nix wants to go on a killing spree attacking the resistance disguised as milita. Then have Cole come in and save the day making them eternally grateful to Cole and more likely to follow him into battle.
We are given the choice of choosing a diverging mission start, good or bad choice.

Mission 46 Hearts and minds campaign
I start the mission and Kuo drives out of fort Phillipe with an ambulance full of medicine.
We are chased by milita and Cole has to ride on top of the ambulance killing milita and unblocking the road.
We come to a huge road block with a large monster and then some chaingunners.
Eventually we get to resistance headquarters, with the milita. This does not please the resistance and we have a huge fight with milita here. Eventually I win and The resistance pledge to help in our fight.

Mission 47 Storm the fort
There is a cut scene with Nix, Kuo and Cole discussing the attack with La Roche the resistance leader. He seems to have a thing for Kuo.
Plans are made, though Kuo and Nix are going to have a hard job not killing each other.
Inside the fort is a hige fight, Nix, Kuo, resistance, Milita all in enclosed spaces.
I have to take out machine gun emplacements for the resistance. Then the power is cut to try and halt Cole. Zeke shows us a transformer and we have to use the tesla bolts to link two transformers to restore power to the fort.
Now there are mortars to take out, two of them. Once this is done the mission cuts to a scene.
Kuo and Nix meet Cole at the machine. The machine can swap powers between two conduits. Nix wants to share powers with Cole, and Kuo thinks it's a bad idea, though she is prepared to share power with Cole. We have to choose. Obviously making the other an enemy.
I choose Kuo as being good means no other option.
Nix is angry and leaves. Kuo and Cole strap into the machine which explodes with energy passing between the two of them. Both are knocked out and thrown clear. Cole sees Bertrand getting into a helicopter to escape. He tries to shoot at him but can't stay conscious.
Zeke appears after a period of unconsciousness. Kuo has went after Bertrand, she seems to have no new powers. Cole it appears has though.
Our first new powers is a frost version of the ionic storm.
Spending waves of ice out from Cole.

Mission 48 Ship of fools
A boat is firing into the city. I sink it by chucking lots of grenades at it.

Mission 49 heavy weapons
A helicopter and a devourer to kill.

Mission 50 Convoy
A convoy must be destroyed.

Mission 51 Main Mission Joseph Bertrand the 3rd
Cole finds Bertrand's helicopter crashed just before a bridge. Bertrand isn't inside but the huge monster from the swamp appears and attacks Cole. Milita fight with Cole for the first time against this huge creature. It has five glowing pink points which we must shoot. This is a fun boss battle, not a hard one. It didn't kill me once.
Eventually when it's health bar is down the monster explodes in a cloud of whirling green smoke. It turns out to be a horribly mutated Bertrand. Who is still alive but escapes on a boat to the other side of the bridge, into the inaccessible part of the city.

Mission 52 Powering up flood town. Main Mission
I have to power up around 5 transformers in the flooded powerless city.
We have to fire a tesla bolt at each one and then defend it until it powers up.
The conduit powered troops that Bertrand was making in his underground facility have claimed flood town as theirs and don't want Cole there it seems.

Mission 53 Overcharge
Again a matter of staying on grind lines and working out the best path.

Mission 54 Prescription Strength
I have to move a crate of medical supplies to another location for the paramedics.

Mission 55 the Dunbar Beam Main mission
La Roche and Zeke are found in the shanties, seems that there is no cure for the plague and all they can do is keep the victims comfortable.
There is not even a way to get help through as aid is being blocked by swamp monsters. A motion sensor is triggered and Cole goes to investigate.
Here we find some spotlights, it appears that the swamp monsters are killed like vampires by infra red light.
There is a perimeter of three or four lights around the shanty. we have to run between each light and use it to kill waves of swamp monsters. Then back at camp some more armored versions of the ice men arrive, they ask La Roche for his blast core. Zeke looks upset and betrayed by La Roche who obviously didn't tell him that he had a blast core. We have to fight two of these icemen, they have a freeze ray type weapon that is fairly effective.
La Roche tells us that he will give us the blast core if we do one more thing for him.

Mission 56 Emergency measures
I have to retrieve four medicine packages for a paramedic from the icemen and return them.

Mission 57 best served cold.
Icemen and milita are fighting, we have to take out both sides.

Mission 58 Enemy surveillance
I track some icemen back to their base and have to kill them all.

Mission 59 Double Whammy
Some Icemen are escorting milita prisoners around, we have to take out both sides.

mission 60 Unlikely allies
Kuo has spoken with an iceman who wants to defect and help them. We are to go and meet him.
He says he can take us to some blast shards. I follow him and we are ambushed by monsters on the way, after taking them out he leaves us to defeat the guards of the blast shards.

Mission 61 Burning Wells
La Roche tells us that four oil wells have been set alight in floodtown, we need to cap them, however there is only one cap, so we will have to take it with us across the town.
Each time we get to one of the wells we have to place the cap on top. However there is trouble at each well. A new Iceman enemy appears named a crusher. He has big icy arms and fires lots of ice streams and chunks at us.
At the last Well I find Bertrand turning someone into a monster. From this we can gather that Bertrand is the source of the swamp monsters.
There is a railyard that seems to be a center of Bertrand activity. Once the last well is capped La Roche tells us to find Zeke he will have the blast core.

Mission 62 Seek and destroy
Three Icemen have been spying on resistance fighters, I have to chase them down before they can get away and report their intelligence. This is quite a fun mission, but I don't want to many of them. I hate timed missions.

Mission 63 Overcharge
Ride the lines from A to B.

Mission 64 Ray Field Energy (Main Mission)
Cole goes to Zeke to get the blast core that La Roche promised. Kuo is there too, she tell us that she has found out that raysphere radiation is what causes the plague. Therefore Cole is responsible, well Cole from the future who came back in time and blasted the raysphere off in Empire city. The RFI will cure the plague if it is used. Cole absorbs the blast core and passes out. When he wakes he tries to use the RFI but can't, he feels that two more blast cores will be needed.
We now have the ability to fire a rocket by aiming with L1 and pressing triangle.
Freeze rocket and quicker combos are also unlocked.

Mission 65 Icebreaker
Kuo wants us to help her attack a base of the icemen. We have to follow her to two areas where there are lots of icemen and kill them all.

Mission 66 Rail yard intel (Main Mission)
Back at the little base we meet Zeke, Kuo and Nix makes a reappearance. The discussion is about Bertrands behavior. He seems to be making the monsters. Nix tells the group that Bertrand makes the monsters, which them rampage wild. However, after a time he can gain control of them and she thinks he is raising an army of them.
Kuo wants to expose Bertrands' schemes by gathering evidence. Nix wants us to try to control the monsters as she has been able to once before. She thinks they will make us a good army.
The Mission ends and we are given a choice, which again since I am being good this playthrough means helping Kuo.

Mission 67 Exposing Bertrand (main mission)
Kuo tells us that she has seen a way into the railyard occupied by Bertrand.
We have to sneak around the back and go into a place where she has fed the guards sleeping drugs. Now we are in the railyard and the guards are lying around sleeping. We have to move around various railcars which have been turned into cages and take pictures of people and monsters kept in them. Finally after about five sets of pictures, we are told by Kuo that Bertrand is there. We have to climb onto a warehouse roof and take a picture of him through the skylight. Once I do a cut scene starts. It shows Bertrand turning a civilian into a monster. Kuo takes our footage and broadcasts it to the city. Now we see Bertrand spotting us and running. We have to free the civilian prisoners.
I free two carriages worth of civilians, jumping on the roof and prying them open. Then a cut scene shows Nix arriving with her monsters in tow. She appears to be wanting to help, though it seems that the inevitable fight against Nix might be coming soon.
I now have a ravager to kill and one more set of civilians to free. No more sign of Nix.

Mission 68 Stay frosty
Kuo tells us that our iceman ally wants to meet, she warns us that he is changing, they all are.
When we meet him he is bulkier, and pretty monosyllabic compared to last time.
I have to follow him to the railyard, and kill some monsters.

Mission 69 The Beast draws near (Main Mission)
Zeke has been spying and has found a missile. He thinks that they should use it on the Beast which is getting very near and a glow from it can be seen on the horizon. We have to clear a path through fighting factions in the city for Zeke to drive the lorry. Boats attack us while we are on the bridge. At the dock Zeke parks the lorry with the missile and we have to climb a crane to get the targeting done.
When I get to the top of the crane icemen attack. We have to kill them all so we can get a clear shot at the beast.
Once done the nuke is launched at the beast. In the aftermath there is great wind and yellow cloud everywhere. The beast seems to be gone. Zeke is hurt, a container has fell on his legs. Blown by the winds from the blast. We have to get it off him. Then help clear his path back to the truck. On the way there is some glowing and sparking at the crane we just came from. It seems the beast may not be down after all.
I get to the truck and in cut scene we see zeke drive off.
The screen goes black and tells us that the beast is in New Marias.
It may be that the nuke damaged him though, as his isn't rampaging around destroying everything. Zeke thinks he has went to the gasworks.

Mission 69 battle by the bay.
A citizen tells us that militia and icemen are fighting in the bay.
I get there and have to kill them all. Swamp monsters turn up as well.

Mission 70 Action shots
I have to take some pictures, why, don't know, but I do.
First the beasts footprints, then the crane it destroyed when it seemed to teleport in or reform in New Marais.
Next a swamp monster eating a dead man.
Next some icemen, in midair on their ice towers and a hive lord laying the eggs that spawn the little fly like creatures.
Then you have to kill em all.

Mission 71 Powering up the gas works (Main Mission)
We have to power up the gaswork area of the city.
Firing tesla missiles we can see some crusher icemen and take them out with the tesla bolts.
Then hit the transformer and go to it.
Defend it while it charges, and then shoot at more icemen and another transformer to defend.
Again we have more icemen crushers to kill, about five or six. Then the transformer, some pretty slick flying is needed.
The last transformer I go to starts a cut scene.
It is a trap, huge metal gates swing down and trap cole in the area with the transformer.
Bertrand appears with milita men.
He asks us to team up with him to take down the beast. Cole refuses and Bertrand orders the militia to shoot him.
We have to survive in the cage for a time, then Zeke comes and saves us.

Mission 72 Cold snap
We have to take out a bunch of icemen with milita prisoners, then two crushers attack when I do.

Mission 73 The Gauntlet
The blast shard bomber has called Zeke and wants to meet. This is the man that is making the blast shard bombs which seem to be random events which can improve your karma.
Seems he wants to give himself up. I doubt it.
I go and find a bomb which nearly blows us up. The bomber runs away from nearby, and we have to chase him. He uses a sequence of bombs to try and slow us down.
Eventually I get to him and we have to defuse his bomb by absorbing it's energy and kill him.
Otherwise civilians he has herded close will be killed.

Mission 74 Ice tea party.
I have to go to a battle between milita and icemen over their boat supplies to kill them all.

Mission 75 Forced Conduits (Main Mission)
Zeke sends us to a warehouse, where he has been told there is a blast core. We have to search a warehouse for a crate with a milita symbol.
I have to blast at crates until I find a safe hidden inside one of them.
Inside the safe is deeds to three other warehouses. I have to search them all.
I search the three, each one is a dud, though one does give blast shard.
At the last warehouse a titan attacks. This is a bigger boss ice creature.
It goes down fairly easily. This one has a little twist in a God of war style. When it's health is low you have to go up to it and lever off a bit by mashing a button. Then kill it.
After killing it inside the safe is a blast core. And info that those Bertrand was making the monsters and the Ice men to sell as weapons. Cole wonders what Bertrands motivation is?

Mission 76 The harder they fall.
I fight an ice titan and a swamp titan, that are fighting each other. Also some smaller enemies.

Mission 77 Special delivery
La Roche tells us about an Iceman courier heading to a warehouse, we have to follow him without letting him see us.
Then at the warehouse kill all the enemies, including a crusher.

Mission 78 The Big chill
Our Ice soldier ally wants to meet us.
He has turned into one of the giant crushers monsters. Though he still has his personality and wants to help us. We go into a warehouse full of icemen and kill them all. Two try and run for it and we have to chase them down.

Mission 79 Mercy kill
The ice soldier has succumbed to his new beastly nature and went rampaging. Kuo and Cole have to take him down.

Mission 80 Ice storm.
The warehouse we liberated earlier has been reclaimed. La Roche asks for our help in retaking it.
Icemen and a crusher, with some rebels to help.

Mission 81 Easy Going (Main Mission)
Cole and Zeke have a fun buddy moment, then Cole uses the Blast Core. He wakes and we now have lightning tether, this makes climbing easy, point where you want to go within range and lightning zips out and drags you there. Press L1 to aim and then R2 to use the tether.

Mission 82 Proud Warrior
Zeke wants us to hack some satellite dishes again.
Five or six to find and drain. Then Zeke plays a video taking the mick out of Cole on the tv's in the area. Suggesting that Cole is looking for love and gives out his cellphone number.

Mission 83 Overcharge
Ride the lines to the end.

Mission 84 Biohazard
Icemen have stolen some volatile chemicals.
Three of them to chase as they make a run for it.

Mission 85 Coast Guard
The milita are shooting at the rebels from two boats, we are asked to help.

Mission 86 The face of change
Bertrand has a boat full of his weaponised conduits ready to ship. Zeke tells us to sabotage it. It has electric anchor winches, which we can break.
I go to the first ship and fight some icemen. Then disable the boat.
On to the next, a crusher is the boss fight here on this boat.
When we disable the anchor here a cut scene starts.
A man named John appears behind Cole, He is wearing a suit, with no shirt, his chest looks torn up and he has scars on his face. His name is John. Cole knows him from Empire City. He thought he was dead.
John explains that the raysphere explosion killed him, but also made him a conduit. In a blatant rip off of Dr. Manhattan's origin story from Watchmen we learn that John pulled himself together and is alive again now. It is fairly obvious that he is the beast. He wants to show Cole something, it does not appear to have hit Cole yet that John is the beast. Cole Allows John to touch his forehead and give him a new power.
John has given us the ability to see those infected with the plague. He tells us that the plague will stretch across America if not checked. He tells us that nothing can stop it. Unless they can find a specific woman.
I go to a plague ward, which is basically a gathering point for those about to die.
I find that now R3 makes the humans appear as if x-rayed. Seeing a glowing red in their belly if they are infected. One woman has a spidery yellow thing at her heart. John asks Cole to heal her, he can't. John tells Cole that he can, but at a cost. Cole asks him what it is and John tells him that he will show him. John starts to glow and reveals himself to be the beast. His energy blasts the warehouse apart.
Cole wakes across the street where he has been blown. The woman who had the yellow spider walks towards him, she is healthy and she suddenly flies straight up into the sky. She then blasts off in a white glow like Kuo does. Seems that the plague isn't killing humanity off but evolving it. Those with the right genes are changed into super-beings, the rest die. John tells us that he can save what he can of humanity, but a huge percentage will die.

Mission 87 Photo Finish
Take pics of the beast detonation site.
Take a picture of the ice tower.
Then an ice titan using its powers.
Then kill the ice titan.

Mission 88 Main Mission
Bertrand plans to leave New Marais by helicopter. Zeke, who is sounding sick, has sabotaged it. We can find Bertrand for a showdown at the helicopter pad.
When the mission starts we meet Bertrand on the helipad. He tells us that he wants all conduits destroyed, that is why he is making them and selling them. He wants the world to know they are evil and rise up and destroy them. Cole tells him that he is just sour because the raysphere turned him into a huge maggot instead of a shining superhuman.
Bertrand threatens to change into the beast again. Cole doesn't care, it's time for a showdown.
Bertrand leaps off the helipad and changes.
Zeke tells us to get onto a truck.
We are driven by Zeke to a point where La roche has set up an ambush. Nix and Kuo also help fight Bertrand.
We have to shoot his glowing pink spots a lot. little monsters run interference.
At a halfway point we are picked up by helicopter and have to shoot at the monster from the air. Eventually we are dropped back of and resistance and conduits alike take out Bertrand.
Nix is pleased and even Kuo gives her a little kudos.

Mission 89 Death Toll
Zeke has seen the icemen in possession of a blast core. We go into their stronghold to get it from them.
Zeke has the plague.
I fight a lot of icemen and then one of them runs with the blast core.
I chase him to the tower and up to the top of it.
The blast core is encased in ice.
We need to activate some valves to open the flow of gas and burn the ice off the top of the tower.
Three valves and many icemen later the top is blown off and the blast core goes down to the ground again.
Now we have to fight another horde of icemen and eventually the blast core is ours.
during this mission we have the ability to power up anywhere, due to a lightning storm that is going on.

Mission 90 The final Piece (Main mission)
Zeke and Cole chat and he then absorbs the blast core.
We now have Ionic storm power.
Which calls down lots of lightning

Mission 91 the final decision (main mission)
We meet with Zeke, nix and Kuo.
Cole tells them what he knows about John and his plan to save conduits.
Cole starts to use the RFI. It begins to kill Cole, Kuo and Nix, zeke stops the process.
It seems to be up to a big choice, use the rfi and wipe out all conduits or let John save only the conduits.
I choose to use the RFI and save humanity at the cost of conduits.
The rfi has been broken, it needs a new power regulator.
Zeke fixes it but it needs charged again. Nix is to take it to power stations and we are to protect her. The beast is after us.
I am led to a boat where we start fighting the beast.
I have to use tether to get back to land, then get to the sub station and charge the rfi.
We fight the beast again, and Nix sacrifices herself to hurt it.
Kuo attacks us and we have to knock her out.
We have to take the rfi to the last sub station and it's charges up. Cole uses it's power to zap the beast one last time. Then Kuo appears and apologies. Cole fires the RFI wiping all conduits from the world.
A cut scene shows all conduits die, and the plague is cured.
Zeke is seen taking Coles body on a boat. Lightning strikes it. So maybe there will be an Infamous 3.

We are told after the credits that time has been wound back. We can go back and do any side missions still remaining. Also we are reminded that we can go back and choose an alternate path, the evil one this time.

20 hours
35% of trophies on first play-through

Duke Nukem forever Notes

2011-07-31T14:23:00.001-07:00

A little montage of scenes from the first game is shown over pounding rock music.
I am surprised about how much and how little I remember of it at the same time.

New Campaign and let's rock or Normal difficulty.

Usual analogue sticks
Click Right stick to crouch.
Click Left stick to run.
Right trigger to shoot
Left to zoom.
Up on dpad for Duke Vision.
Down on dpad to drink beer.
A to jump.

Mission 1
Start off urinating into a urinal. Duke is in what looks like the shower room of a football team locker room.
I move into a large room and there are some uniformed police or soldiers standing around a whiteboard. They are planning how to attack a large monster. Their plan seems to be simply to charge.
There are wounded lying around.
I go out into the corridor and the monster can be seen under fire from the cops. I go towards it and it blows up the cops hurling Duke back down the corridor. The Way is blocked so we have to go back and go down the stairs.
I move through some corridors and see soldiers fighting aliens.
I move through an area with fighting, though as soon as I get in the area the soldiers take out the aliens. A gun is left behind. As I pick it up I get taken up on the lift I am standing on.
I am now facing the giant monster that was blowing things up earlier on at the football field itself.
The boss has rockets, a rush attack and an ground based energy weapon. Ammo for the rocket firing gun you have called the devastator runs out quick but is dropped in by air support. The alien has a health bar. Once it's worn down you have a little QuickTime to hurt the alien and kick a field goal with it's eye which pops out.
Then the scene cuts

Mission 2
We are in the real world now, seems what has went before was a game Duke was playing. He quips that it should be good as it has taken 12 years to make.
Two girls are pleasuring Duke while he plays the game.
The news reports show that alien ships have arrived and are hovering over the city. The president is in talks with the aliens. There is speculation as to whether these are the same aliens from the last time 12 years ago.
I can play pool just like the last game.
Looking in Mirrors and playing pool increases your ego, which means you can take more damage.
The alien ship can be seen out of the window of Duke's Penthouse.
I move through Duke's Penthouse filled with pictures of him climbing Everest and other outrageous feats. Then into an elevator.

Mission 3
Downstairs we are in the tv studio of a late show a like. I have to sign an autograph for a kid and then go on stage. However the show is canceled as the aliens have arrived in a Dukeburger nearby and all the news crews are covering it.
Duke decides to go and investigate.
Backstage a guy is giving a Christian Bale style rant, we can knock him out for an achievement.
Inevitably the aliens have started shooting, explosions can be heard and the ground is shaking.
I take another lift.
It seems that we are stuck and the emergency button opens the lift roof which we can climb up onto.
The doors to the next floor are forced and I come out into a Duke Museum.
The museum is full of statues and pictures from the earlier games.
A throne is available to take pictures on. A kid is sitting in it, he won't move until we take his picture and we have to press a button to make it happen. He then moves and we sit on the throne which is a lift to a secret areas.

Mission 4
The Duke cave
In the Duke cave, which is filled with computers and screens. The old bios screen on bootup isn't lost on me.
The President and a general appear on the screens and tell Duke to sit on his hands. The president is in talks with the Cycloid emperor and does not want Duke to start shooting them up yet.
The general it seems reluctantly agrees with the President.
Duke's computers flash a warning about intruders. Through a door in the back of the room we see the aliens are inside Duke's complex.
In the next area an alien is coming through a door trying to hit us. I punch him and he goes back through. On trying to open the door a computer voice tells us that we need a red keycard. Duke tells us that he doesn't need a keycard and we force open the door with QuickTime.
Now we can chuck objects at aliens and kick them to execute them.
I go through a hatch into a crawlspace.
Then things go dark and we have night vision, aptly named Dukevision.
Now we are meeting more aliens and get a gun to shoot back.
The reactor has three pods that have been removed. Two are found in the room of the actual reactor. The last is two rooms away and we have to use a remote control car to get it out of a room. Basically a little puzzle and skill test to push it from one place to the other. Back in the reactor room we turn the power back on.
Now we run along some corridors shooting the aliens. We get a pistol in addition to the alien plasma weapon we have been using so far.
I run along the corridor until I come to a gun type emplacement at the centre of a lift.

Mission 5
Going up in the lift Duke Activates the gun. We come out on the roof of the skyscraper under the alien mothership.
This is an emplaced gun section. The mothership needs shot in the guns that protrude out of it's shield. There are ships which attack with lasers and sent out jetpack troops.
There is long loading every time you die and the enemy ships are two hit kills.
After wearing down the ships health it's main gun blows up. Duke's gun is hit by debris and he is knocked out. The elevator takes him back down and he wakes up four hours later. We crawl through some vents.
Now we have to stop an elevator from falling, we pull the emergency brake, but it heats up and fails. I struggled with this mini game to understand what the hell I am meant to be doing. Again a long load after a death in what seems like a tiny area of game.

Mission 6
I eventually learn that you have to keep it from overheating.
Now we come out of the elevator and get shrunk by a crater of alien goo.
We meet the kid from earlier that we gave and autograph to. He lets us have his remote control car to drive.
Now there is a long driving sequence where we take the remote control car through the hotel.
Lots of jumps and we can see aliens kidnapping women using teleporters.

mission 7
After a load we progress through the casino halls until we come to a door the car can't pass under.
I find that duke can get out and crouch to get under. we now need to climb on stuff to get to the door switch.
Now we have more driving, charging aliens try and stomp you.
We come to a gate, the two girls from earlier are behind it with soldier.
We have to move a luggage trolley next to the switch and then jump on furniture to get to the switch.
Now we meet the girls and get back to full size.
Alien start teleporting in, we get the shotgun and it's a fun time taking out waves of aliens with the shotgun. Eventually the babes are teleported away and Duke is angry now.
I have to force open a gate then go along the corridor we just drove along fighting the charging pig aliens.
Next we have a wave of all variety of aliens coming from a hole in the ceiling.
Now another large room, we seem to be going back along the track we took with the car, why?
You can play the fruit machines.

Mission 8
We come to a statue of Duke, we have to move it so that it is pointing to a man above us on a balcony. The arms have to be moved up. We then have to pull down a city structure that is around Duke and then climb on it to climb onto the statue and up it to get to the balcony.
Now we get a quick tutorial on trip mines. How to duck under and over them. Also to shoot them when we can see the actual mine.
Fires are shown to us and also the fact that we can shoot fire extinguishers to put out fires that are blocking the way.
We meet some soldiers from the Earth Defense force.
Then a boss battle with a fat flying creature. It shoots rockets and is backed up by some pig cops.

Mission 9
The general speaks to us. The aliens have made a wormhole by the Hoover dam. They are using it to bring in reinforcements.
The aliens are taking women to the Dukedome.
We go outside and meet a gung ho soldier. Every second word is a curse from this man. In the back of a supply truck is Master Chiefs armor, which Duke pronounces is for pussies.
I get the ripper gun, which if I remember was a staple of old Duke.
Now we have an emplaced gun section out on the streets.
Waves of pigs and flying teleporter pigs.
A new alien beam weapons and an rpg here.
Now we are moving through the streets, also some emplaced guns and waves.
I come to a large crater and after some waves of enemies a large boss appears.
I shoot it a lot with rockets and it dies fairly easily.
It shoots lasers and rockets at you.
Once downed yo enter a sewer tunnel.

Mission 10
I move through broken up sewer, avoiding electrified water by jumping on pallets, another fire to put out with a fire extinguisher. Now up a ladder.
He we end up in a construction yard. builders tell us to get in a container and they will lift it over for us. We are now in a kind of vehicle section where we get moved around and have to take out the waves of enemies.
Same barrel throwing dude kills me three times in a row, four and it's off.
I manage it by only shooting a pipe bomb into the place where he runs from.
Eventually the crane is toppled and we are back on foot.
I enter another construction yard area, then the front of the Dukedome. Aliens are toppling a statue of Duke.
Now we enter an area where there is a button to press to open a gate. Only there is no power on. We have to make our way into a portacabin, through the roof and switch on the power.
while we are inside the aliens attack in waves. Eventually the cabin is overturned and we can get out again.

Mission 11
I come to an area where there are containers which must be filled with barrels to make them tip and then jumped on to get to the next area. If this Half Life 2?
Now we must find a battery to get a crane working.
The crane's mast must be scaled to get into an adjacent site to get the battery. A dropship attacks and must be shot down with rockets.
Back at the crane we must bash a hole in the side of the stadium to enter.
We must position the crane so we can run up the mast to enter.

Mission 12
Now we are inside the stadium.
The alien hive is filled with organic matter. Orifice like doors and little bugs.
We have to hit a bug which rolls up into a ball. If the ball is rolled near a grabbing arm an orifice door is unlocked.
Now we see women cocooned and mutated to give birth to the aliens.
Little jump pads that shoot you up, in sequence like a human pinball.
Duke find his two girls mutated and they are killed by bug like aliens in front of him. This makes him angry.
Now we have puzzle, to get a door open we must find a ball, however it's far away down a dark corridor, enemies run interference.

Mission 13
More ball rolling to open a door.
Quite a bland level, sensing a theme.
New monsters that Duke seems to think are shaped like dicks. They shoot white goo.
No comment.

Mission 14
I come into a more human looking area again, part of the stadium. A door is locked and there seems to be an obvious way around the obstacle but I can't seem to jump up to the ledge where there is a way around.
You can throw a pipe bomb through and detonate it on the other side.
Now the queen. She has thick armor, and three breasts. We have to make her dazed by hurling a pipe bomb onto the jump pad which sends it over to her. She hits at us,and send the small monsters in as well.
Once the queen's health is low the octobrains arrive and they shoot your rockets right back at you.
Eventually I kill it and Duke is injured as it dies.

Mission 15
Now we are in what seems to be a dream sequence. Duke is in a strip club.
He is approached by a stripper who asks him to find three items. A dildo, a condom and a bag of popcorn.
Once we find them, in a locker, in the break room and in the toilet we are to go and get a lap dance.

Mission 16
Duke wakes up from his dream of lapdances to find he is in a helicopter heading for the Hoover dam.
The helicopter is shot down and we are on our own again.
We have to climb down from the tower we have crash landed in.
Lots of little ledges and tentacles to negotiate, ladders and some interference from alien jetpackers.
I find a crashed helicopter and have a little emplaced gun shooting to do at alien ships buzzing around the tower.
Then we get a gun called the devastator which is a rapid fire missile launcher.
A large ship needs to be taken down with it.
An alien jetpacker teleporter guy grabs Duke and takes him out into the air. Duke Punches his head off and then crashes through the window of the tower with the flying corpse.

Mission 17
We have crash landed in a duke burger, There is a puzzle with an electrified area blocking out way.
We have to get small and crawl through a hole, turn off the power then get small again and climb up and into the walls. We then make our way through the inside of the walls to the next area.

Mission 18
We now have tiny shrunk aliens to deal with, they hide under drink cups.
Little platform puzzles in the Duke Burger to make our way through the area.
We then have large enemies to deal with while shrunk, the trick is to lure them onto shrink pads so you can kill them.
We then have to clamber our way up the larder. Who told these people that platform games were fun in first person shooters?
Next is a marathon clamber around a kitchen that is filled with electrified water.
This is not fun at all.
I just got burned on a grill and have to go back for miles of non-fun jumping.
Eventually after much puzzling with a toaster I get past this awful area.

Mission 19
On the roof we have to wait for pickup from the military. Five minutes on the roof with monsters incoming. I get the shrink ray which is fun at least.
Once the aliens are shrunk you can stamp on them by running at them looking down.
Many waves and two large flying bosses are quite fun, for once.
This game is too stop start, you just get going with the gunplay and then it's back to wandering around and climbing stuff.

Mission 20
We have to fire from a helicopter gun too clear the landing zone at the dam.
Then we have to drive a monster truck. Nothing happens here though, just a drive along a track.

Mission 21
More driving here, we get to run over enemies and jump large gaps by using boost.
Eventually the truck runs out of gas and we are back on foot.
I have to clear the road and kill some waves before being allowed to move forward due to a barrier which is cleared for us by the enemy. Now we have the same puzzle as earlier. Get into a building via the skylight.
I get the gas can and have to go back to the truck. Some more road driving with bits of road being blown out by ships from above.

Mission 22
More road.
Then a town and yet another gas stop.
We have to clear this western town and then puzzle it out in a barn with pulleys and ladders to get the gas can. Turning a winch to move a platform and letting a ladder down.
More fighting in the town and then back to the truck.
Through the town and into a tunnel on the other side.
I get the holoduke here, which makes a holoduke that runs around doing stuff distracting the enemy. I am invisible while it is working.

Mission 23
More driving. This time we have trucks with barrel throwing enemies on the back to get past.
When we do the road runs out and all of us come crashing down.
The car is ok and we move on.

Mission 24
No gas left again.
Now into an abandoned mine.
We have a lot of enemies outside the mine. Then a dropship brings more in. Then we have to fight the dropship.
Now inside the mine for some puzzles with little mine carts. We have to get the mine cart to move with us in it to jump gaps.
Once I get the gas there is some platforming.
Then a mine cart ride out into the open and back to the truck.
Now we jump the truck over some bridges and into another tunnel.

Mission 25
Hopefully the last of the driving?
No, but not for long at least, we are near the focus of the action. A large spire or organics that seems to be sending a beam of electricity up into the sky causing a large cloud formation.
The president meets us here after we ditch our tuck in the water.
He isn't happy and still seems to think that he can negotiate with the aliens.
Duke is stoic and carries on where we meet up with some military for a firefight.
We fight along the dam until one of the big monsters from earlier appears.
This time it needs to have it's health worn down twice. It gets angrier and more deadly after the first QuickTime event.
Once he is downed Duke Rappels down the side of the dam. We have to go and find the general inside the dam's tunnels.

Mission 26
We meet some workmen and an EDF soldier downstairs inside the dam. The men have barricaded a door and there are lots of aliens behind it. They say they will open up a lock on the far side of the rooms beyond if we go in and clear out the aliens. I do, I get the freeze ray for this. Does what it says, hose the aliens and they freeze, run up and punch them and they shatter.
The door is opened and that is that.

Mission 27
Now we come to a section where there is alien growth blocking the way. We can turn valves which lets out steam which kills the growth. We have to move pipes by unlocking them and twisting them to make the steam reach an area of growth.
Now we fight some more and come to a shrink patch. Shrunk I now have to enter vents after clearing away rats. In the vents air is bowing fast and we are buffeted around and taken on a ride. I have to clear a brush from a fan to make it move to get carried upwards.
Now it gets complicated, inside the gears of a diabolical machine this is real first person platform gaming and a good example of why the genre doesn't work
Long reloading after death does not help here at all.
I eventually get through this nightmare. Considers stopping playing for a bit though.
Some electric switches and pistons to avoid at the top of the gears nightmare.
Now into a room with some small aliens attacking. Then another large alien while you are small scenario.
This seems to be the boss for this area.

Mission 28
We come out into a control room and have to open a door to get out onto the top of the dam.
Now some tentacle monsters who fly around hurling barrels and crates at you.
a lot of them and an emplaced gun.
Now a large one called an octaking. This is a fairly easy boss. It's attacks don't seem to harm me on the emplaced gun. It runs away, so I am sure we will be seeing it again.
I progress into a room where there are lots of waves of enemies then a puzzle involving a forklift to get up to a ledge. Into an elevator and mission is done.

Mission 29
I come out onto the generator room of the Hoover dam. The alien tentacles are infesting it.
This is a platform puzzle. I make my way up using the dam structure and the tentacles to the top. Then a man in a control room starts a large lift platform moving. This is a survival box and waves of flying aliens come before the octaking makes it's next appearance.
Here we have limited cover while the octaking and three octo aliens attack
This seems impossibly hard until you realize that the three octo aliens don't respawn infinitely. The boss is too hard with them shooting at you as well as them. So use pipe bombs to take them out until they stop respawning. Maybe around four sets of three. Then take out the octoking. Once his health is down a little he will take out your cover anyway which makes it impossible to survive with the other little octo's flying near you.
Once he is dead the lift goes to the far end and you climb down behind him into an elevator shaft and have to drop down into water.

Mission 30
We land in the water and have to climb out into another part of the dam. Putting out a fire lets you move forward.
Now we have a little puzzle where a spinning fan blade attached to a huge pole is blocking the way. Large metal toolboxes can be pushed into it from nearby and once three are in the fan stops.
Now we move through this huge generator machine room to a set of ducts.
Dropping into a room ends this mission.

Mission 31
Here we have more underwater fun.
Air bubbles like the ones from old sonic games refill your air.
we have to open a door with a wheel and a turbine gives us current to fight against.
Now we meet lots and lots of the little ocatababies in the water. The almost kill you instantly. Lesson one off terrible game design is don't give people tasks that are dull, like opening a stupid wheel door and swimming around for a few rooms before an annoying instant death moment. This game has been an exercise in masochism from near the start.
I hang back and retreat, and use pipe bombs and trip mines and manage to get past these annoying enemies. I can see humans fighting a large alien, one we have fought before.
Now we have an area of darkness. Some normal alien to fight. Ammo is running scarce here, a new tactic?
We start heading down into alien hive territory.

Mission 32
Now we have some fighting in more corridors. Then a large area. Here we have a scaffold on wheels that we must push to a point to make the way forward open. Taking out some crates that block the way.
A crane type boom seems to move when I shoot some barrels near an enemy standing on the pivot point.
It seems that the mission here is to get the boom to pivot until you can climb on it and get out of the area. You have to find barrels which can be placed in the basket of the crane and weigh it down. You need about five barrels. Once you find enough enemies start to come in in waves after each new barrel. Eventually two flying bosses arrive. Once dealt with you can climb the boom and leave the level.

Mission 33
We find a room full of aliens, a fight and a little puzzle to jump up and around the room to get out. Now we come to a large room,a pool in the middle is flooded and there is electrified water in the way. We have to jump on stepping stones in the water, accessed from the right side of the pool. Once across we come through some rooms climbing some stairs and come out above the pool. The EDF soldier is badly injured and tells Duke that the plan to shut the power of has not worked. The new plan is to blow the dam. Duke is given charges and the soldier dies.
The only way forward is to go down the ladder beside the soldier, which seems to be backtracking but never mind.
I have to move a platform, as we do so, octaflyers attack.
This bit is a pain in the ass as there is no cover and the octaflyer's attack has large splash damage.
there is around 40 seconds loading time each time you die.
Once the five octaflyers that attack almost all at once die you move the grate, flick the switch that is controlling the electricity to the pool. Now you can dive down into it and get a wheel turned to open the way out.

Mission 34
Now we pass through large underwater areas, always mindful of the need to keep close to air bubbles.
There is a large flooded area and it seems we have to plant two charges. I find the first one following air bubbles. Octaflyers attack and it's even harder now that you have air to worry about while fighting them.
Following the pipes and opening valves gets you forward. I find and plant the last bomb and a large eel like creature attacks. It's called an energy leech and it's annoying, it trashes you and shoots electrified darts at you. It also tries to suck you in.
In places like this where you die frequently you spend half your time waiting to respawn. Why, it can't possibly need to load the area again?
I eventually kill the worm with the bomb. swimming through the door the worm came from ends the mission.

Mission 35
Now I have an escape the dam mission. The place is blowing up and flooding. You have to stay above the flood water and keep moving. There is a broken bridge, which can be got past by using some red pipes to the side.
Now I go up some steps and barrels are flying down them at you.
Some more enemies to deal with at the top of the stairs, then some more running around breaking up stairs and walkways. Finally into a large pipe, water spills along it and we are washed out of the dam in time to see it breaking up.

Mission 36
Duke is resuscitated by an EDF soldier. The dam is blown, the portal is closing. It looks like the invasion is denied by Duke again. Nobody has seen the cycloid emperor. The president isn't happy.
He appears to have been on the cycloid side all along. The president tells Duke that he has called in a nuke and it will kill Duke. However the emperor is pissed and appears and kills the president. We are now into the final boss battle.
This is a repeat of the start of the game, only we are in the broken dam front rather than a football field. Strangely enough it's the easiest boss battle since the first one. I have to use rockets that we get from the pig cops that help the emperor. Once the emperors health is down he falls and I have to rip bits off him in QuickTime. Do this three times and it's over.
The general appears and picks Duke up in a helicopter. On the way out the Nuke goes off and the copter crashes. A computer screen tells us that Duke is KIA. Then we hear his voice telling us that he will be back.
The credits roll.

570 achievement points
16 hours on normal difficulty

SOCOM: Special Forces notes

2011-06-16T07:06:00.001-07:00

42mb patch to download, just bought it a week ago and that was day of release.

I Choose normal difficulty.

Our character walks into a military base.
Pirates are attacking shipping lanes, they are called Naga.
There is a private company running security and Nato have sent a task force in as well.
I think my character is part of Nato.
There appears to be tensions between Nato and the PMC.
An Asian woman is arguing with the general when we come in.
We are going to check the security of the perimeter.
The scene shifts to six hours later, pirates and soldiers are fighting in the street.
We are in a hotel and helping airlift some people away.
Seems that there has been a coup and we are caught in the middle.

Controls

Usual analogue sticks.
Clicking left stick runs.
R1 is aim down sight
R1 is shoot.
R2 is grenade.
triangle is a crouch toggle.
Square picks up weapons
Circle goes in and out of cover.
Holding L2 brings up a menu by which we can switch guns and grenades by holding the sticks in different directions.

Mission 1
I get control as a rocket hits the hotel.
I am told to get to cover and a location waypoint appears down in the foyer.
I move out of the hotel and a van enters the hotel grounds and we are under attack.
I move out onto the streets and there has been some heavy fighting and bombing going on, there is a lot of devastations. I shoot some enemies and head up onto an overpass.
I am told to take out a man in a building using grenades.
We come to our base and it is attacked by heavy armour.
In cut scene we call our superiors and find that most of them were in the base that just got zapped. We call air support and have to guide bombs in to hit the tanks.
Now we are moving forwards again. I come to a large area of street with lots to shoot at. This is actually quite fun when you get into it. Makes a change from COD, back to the Rainbow Six / Graw type of game play.
A waypoint takes us to a car and a cut scene which shows out gang get in and drive off.

Mission 2
We are now going out to investigate Naga bases out in the jungle.
Apparently we are to meet our PMC friends, as we stop our car close to our destination, we see their plane get shot down. Some manage to parachute off, we are going to look for survivors.
We arrive at the crash site and are told to be stealthy, we have to move slowly so as to not make noise and also to crouch in long grass.
We are shown how to sneak up on someone from behind and press R3 to stealth kill.
We then find some enemies blocking the way and are shown how to order our two squad members to attack targets.
After killing the enemies I progress on to the crash site.
We now find the Koreans who are under heavy attack from the enemy. I wade in and save the day.
In cut scene the female Korean leader who is named Park is appraised of the seemingly hopeless situation. She doesn't take it well and seems to resent the Nato people.
She does join us though reluctantly.
We now have to take out the anti aircraft gun that shot down the Korean plane.
I enter the village and the game is trying to teach me the controls for ordering around the two teams. It's a little confusing and it all goes to hell. I basically trigger full scale war and to hell with stealth. It works though. I clear the village and place a charge on the anti aircraft gun and take it out. We leave the area and that is the mission done.

Mission 3
A frigate has been spotted in dry dock that will pose a problem for any new ships entering the area. IF we can cripple it in dry dock it will help the situation.
Park, the Korean woman is a stealth specialist, she is sent in to do the job. Our hero and her have a bit of a chat about her lack of respect for authority before the mission. She thinks Gorman sent her team into a meat grinder and therefore that is why she was so rude to him.
This is a night mission, we are to get in and out in a stealthy manner.
We have a stealth meter which shows how visible we are. Sticking to the shadows and cover is the way to go.
I can shoot people but I have to hide the bodies.
I can throw shell casings to distract people over towards a direction.
I can scale certain crates.
I now come to the ship and have to sneak past many sentries and patrols to get to the pump station. Here I sabotage it and now have to get out again. We go under the dry dock and run around corridors here being guided by the hero who is watching using UAV's.
Now we have to climb onto the top of the cargo containers.
Over the containers and then some more sneaking to the exit.

Mission 3
The sabotage will delay the launch of the frigate, however it won't prevent it entirely. We now have to go in with more men and disable it.
I can take it slow and tactical or go in all guns blazing, it soon descends into madness anyway.
I approach the gates, get inside killing all resistance and move through the dock area towards the frigate. Snipers attack here, usual red lines show their location.
As we approach the ship all tactics goes out the window as we have the ships gun firing at us. I have to run under it's firing range straight into a load of enemies.
Once the enemies are cleared around the ship I board it and plant two charges on the weapons systems.
Now we plant a beacon for the bomber. Now we leave, some more resistance on the way out.
The plane comes in and blows up the frigate.

Mission 4
Oracle tells us of a Naga supply line, which we should obviously do something about.
We come to the road and kill a few guards. Then we set up an ambush. The a.i. do it all for me, setting up claymores and getting into good positions.
I am told to go up on a bridge and wait. The convoy comes and the ambush is very effective.
We now progress along the road fighting, snipers attack as well.
I approach the base and find a large influx of tanks coming off ships, helicopters etc. This isn't some provincial pirate, he is being supplied by a government.
We have to use the air strike to destroy four vehicle groups and then hack a computer to get intel.
Then we leave.

Mission 5 Fluid Dynamic
Intel taken from the computer shows that Lazard, the leader of the coup is holed up in a specific location. However, it is well defended. The quickest way to cause chaos and ruin the bad guys day is to blow a dam that overlooks his hideout. Oracle advises that this will ruin the area for years to come and cause lots of civilian unrest.
The commander does not agree.
On the way there Lazard calls our hero. He seems to know him, presumably from an old game.
They talk about previous blood being spilled and our heroes previous failures.
Lazard wants to ruin commerce transport in the strait and hold the global economy to ransom.
Our commander doesn't think he should be let get away with that.
We enter the area and meet heavy resistance. Two vehicles drive in, though they handily park near exploding barrels.
Inside the dam building, are lots of soldiers, I kill them all and hit the switch. However, there is an emergency close switch somewhere else that we will need to control.
This is a long defend the position objective. Lots of soldiers, snipers and a helicopter attacks.
A cut scene shows the devastation the flood causes.

Mission 6
We are chasing Razard into the slums.
Cut scene shows 45 and another grunt chatting about the commander. The backstory about the last game is explained quickly.
This is another stealth mission where we are controlling 45.
A scripted a.i. officer walks around talking to men and making sure the guards are doing their job. We have to follow him around and take out the odd soldier who is in the way.
After a while of this we are to take out rooftop snipers.
Then sneak in and place a tracker on Razard's car.
We then sneak out of the area.

Mission 7 Means to an end.
The tracker has worked and we now know where Razard is. We are now going to go and get him.
Reviving your team mates when they go down is very hard to do, because it's broken.
Now we move through the slums we just sneaked through with Forty-five all guns blazing killing everyone.
We get to a new area and an armoured vehicle shows up.
There is a handy rocket launcher nearby of course.
Then we move into the target building.
Up inside it and we find Razard in cut scene.
He offers the commander a million dollars to walk away, of course our stand up hero does not accept the bribe. Razard is asked for the name of who is financing his coup. It appears to be Clawhammer, the PMC that Forty-five works for.
Razard is shot by a sniper.
We now have to escape.
Which is against a time limit and the previous areas are now filled with soldiers.
I get to the Extraction point but it's quite hard.

Mission 8
Clawhammer have turned on the Naga forces and are now openly taking charge.
Nato forces are under attack and we are to assist.
We find them under heavy attack.
Eventually we meet two survivors and they joins us as we fight through the slums.
A helicopter attacks.
Shit this helicopter is hard to kill, eventually it's a matter of learning it's pattern.
After it's down a cut scene shows the commander and Forty-five arguing about why they need to personally finish the war single handedly.
The commander has no answer other than it's a game duh, who else is going to do it.

Mission 9
We are now sending Forty-five to attack a Clawhammer fortification.
We sneak in at night and find Gorman, the original commander is the leader of Clawhammer.
Forty-five wants to shoot him right there and then, but the commander makes her think about it. We have to place a tracker on his helicopter.
I sneak in after lots of false starts and plant the beacon.
Then have to sneak back out again.

Mission 10 Turning point
We have to get into a base and hack the friend or foe identification on Clahammer ships.
I progress through two bunkers and then have to defend while the missiles are hacked.
Then I have to shoot at a ship in the distance with the missiles.
Now another bunker to attack.
Same deal, defend Chung and shoot the frigate. It tried to blow you up with Missiles this time though.
Then run for extraction point.

Mission 11
We are now going after Gorman.
As 45 we are gaining intelligence on the base and seeing what is happening.
I have to sneak past soldiers into the base.
Gorman intends to launch missiles at a tanker, then he is leaving, as if his forces were never there.
We have to take out three sentries with a sniper single shot. Then get in and upload some plans from a computer.
Now we have to plant charges on three thanks.
Which is hard work, we then escape and blow up the tanks.

Mission 12
The straight would be closed for a year if the tanker is blown in the straight.
The economic implications for oil prices would be huge.
Clawhammer's companies would probably be the ones paid to clean up.
Gorman's missile must be stopped.
We use a jeep to get as close as we can to the base in daylight and attack.
Then we work our way along a road through ruins that are heavily guarded.
Finally we get to the launcher.
We have to stop the enemy from launching it.
After a long siege the gang are sent to get a helicopter and we go to disarm the missile.
Gorman attacks while we do and he is stabbed by a pen, however he shoots us a few times for good measure.
we disarm the missile and Gorman runs.
45 finds us dying and we tell her to go and get Gorman.
Though he tells her not to kill him, then dies.

Mission 13
45 is now in the city again, chasing down Gorman.
Lots of fun in the streets, just corridor shooting our way towards Gorman.
Then up through a multi story car park.
Now we have to use air support to take out five convoy trucks from the roof. There is heavy sniper and soldier fire to deal with apart form the heavy artillery form the vehicles.
After we destroy the convoy lots of soldiers attack.
We then go into the train station to face down Gorman. He is wounded and dragging a case full of money.
I don't shoot, I presume the cross hair that appears is a chance to kill him or be merciful.

Credits Roll

8 hours of game time give or take.
40% of trophies on first play through.

Vanquish Notes

2011-06-16T02:23:00.001-07:00

I choose normal difficulty. There is a casual auto mode, wonder what that is?

We see our character called Sam being put into the suit.
Elena and Prof Candide are talking through video call into the suit helmet hud.
We have to calibrate our movement, some tutorial stuff.

Controls
Normal left and right analogue sticks for movement and camera. Third Person view.
We Can go into cover by pressing X, X also jumps over cover when in it and pushing towards the object.
Left trigger is aim
Right trigger is shoot
Y is grenade
B is melee.
hold right bumper to pick weapons.
dpad changes between the four weapons you can carry.

The suit can slide on it's knees and go into a bullet time like mode.

Cut scene shows the world, a city, peaceful and sunny, looks Like San Francisco.
A machine appears to be powerful up in space.
Looks like an attack is coming.
Looks like some kind of microwave gun, which blows up the city and fries the people.

A video sent to the president shows a Russian leader telling us that there is to be surrender, he is in control of this weapon and will use it on New York next.
The President won't surrender and it's war.
We see spaceships heading for the enemy
A Commander gives a pep talk.
We see Sam and a woman Called Ivanova discussing the professor who built the microwave weapon. Seems he is unhappy about it's current use.
The commander talks to Sam and tests his reflexes.

Act 1 Mission 1
We get control.
We move along a corridor, the ship is being hit and there are breaches in the hull.
A cut scene shows the ships approaching the Russian ships, there is a lot of damage and the ship only just makes it.
There is heavy resistance inside the ship, we are seen getting into a ship and flying down to land inside the enemy ship.
We find our way blocked by gun emplacements. I am to flank them and kill the robots using the guns. There are two large walker type robots.
I can take control of these if I shoot the operators.
I can heal downed team mates.
The commander's name is Burns.

Act 1 Mission 2
We now fight into a large open area with a balcony. There are lots of enemies in the square with us and lots up on the balcony.
I clear them, and some more a teleported in. We then get some more waves coming in through a gate and a larger humanoid enemy is with them.

Act 1 Mission 3
Some transports come in and let lots of robots loose now that we are up on the balcony. I use their emplaced guns against them.
A huge robot boss arrive. I have to shoot it's legs, which exposes it's core.
Then it transforms and I have to shoot arms and legs and it's core after each limb.
The boss has many attacks, all devastating.
One hit kills are not uncommon.
This is old school masochism at it's worst.

Act 1 Mission 4
We go through a door, there is some chat about a teleporter that isn't fit for human use.
Guess we will be using that later then?
We are going to be meeting up with friendlies.
I fight through an open area with lots of enemies.
There is a bigger robot but not a boss, just a tank type.
I come to an area where three men are being held captive.
I go to rescue them against advice from Burns.
This is basically going to three points and pressing a button.
Then a door opens and more enemies arrive.
A dropship gives me trouble.
Now we go through the door.

Act mission 5
We proceed through some fairly squared off areas fighting, it's fun and all.
Then we have to get up on a bridge and protect some soldiers who are being overrun. We have emplaced guns to help.
A man is trapped and again Burns wants to close the gate on him and we intervene.
A mini boss and lots of enemies to kill then we see a cut scene of us saving the man.
Burns gives a grudging nod of approval.
Weird to see characters smoking
Burns takes high ground here and we have to take another route.
I progress through a trench and burns is above taking out those shooting us from above.
We come to a large open area and a tank boss appears.
A big tank with blades on the front and a gun. It has many red bits to shoot and eventually dies.
Not half as much of a pain in the ass as the last boss though.

Act 1 Mission 6
We have to blow up a barrier.
We meet up with a friendly vehicle, which we now have to escort.
Some robot spiders and large octopus type enemies advance on it and we have to stop them.
We come to a gate which we have to plant two charges on.
Then more spiders and squids before a cut scene shows us bursting out of the tunnel onto the surface again.
some crude jokes about ass insertion here?!?!

Act 1 mission 7
We drive up a hill to a large open area with the vehicle following.
A lot of enemies are dug in here at some large doors.
I start shooting, then a large drill type thing appears out of the ground and takes out the vehicle. Lots of enemies and a large humanoid boss appears. It's got all the big attacks and is very mobile. Sliding around on the ground like you can do.
Shooting it in the two red spots on it's back and chest seem to be the way to go.

Act 1 Mission 8
We go up in a lift and reach another large open area with lots of boxy cover littering the area. In cut scene a professor can be seen, we are to capture him.
I fight a mini boss here again and then a cut scene kicks in.
The professor sees Sam and is herded away by robot guards.
The leader of the enemy forces appears. He is wearing a similar suit to Sam, only his one has a flying jetpack. His name is Victor
He attacks for some stylish cut scene fighting then we are into a boss battle with him.
He flies around like a hyperactive flea, though as usual with fights with the same boss that will recur over and over in a game we aren't seeing his full power here. I take him down first time, though when his energy gets low he comes in for some button stabbing quicktime.
Then he decides that this round is over and leaves with the professor.

Act 2 Mission 1
we are heading for a freight transport. More standard fight box fighting.
We are now fighting on a freight conveyor system.
Two moving large belts, there are doors that have laser fields that kill you instantly.
Lots of robots in the middle to shoot and your cover needs to adapt to the moving rails which exposes you all the time.
We then go up a set of stairs and have two mini bosses at once.
We then get on the train.

Act 2 mission 2
This is an on rails vehicle section, we have a fairly long train deck to stand on. Enemies fly in from above and try and land troops onto the deck of the train.
There are also flying robots to take out.
Another train comes on a nearby track. This track twists and turns around us and we have to take out all the robots on it in a time limit. They have rigged it to crash into our train. Ivanova can hack it if there are no robots left on it.
This was quite a fun section, the view around you of the inside of the orbital is mind bending as your train runs inside the cylindrical inner walls.
The train eventually is derailed and we are ambushed by chasing forces.
I have to take out the incoming forces. After a few waves a cut scene starts.
Sam jumps onto an enemy flyer and uses it to take out some of the incoming ones.
The train crashes through the structure it crashed into and Burns and some of the other soldiers go down with it. Sam tries to go after them but it looks like they die in a big explosion.
Sam is being chased by flyers and loses them in a tunnel.
We are now using the flyer, all we have to do is aim and the flyers guns shoot where we aim.
Linked into the suit systems.
I shoot at a train filled with robots and then one of the big argus bosses shoots the flyer down.

Act 2 Mission 3
Sam survives the crash of course and we are now to heading to the airport??
Maybe we are chasing the professor?
Maybe after the Victor guy, not sure if the game knows why we are going there either.
Some rolling ball robots appear, they rush up as spheres then sprout legs and guns. melee attacking them kicks them into orbit.
I proceed down narrow corridors, the argus boss can be seen outside in the distance.
Ok, now there are two of the giant bosses.
In cut scene Burns arrives back, you know when you want to make an impact when a character you think is dead turns back up, maybe at least five minutes should be given without them.
It isn't as bad as I was fearing. While before you had to kill the first form then the second, this time you just have both forms at once. So it's the same length of battle.
It's just that there is more fire going on. They don't both concentrate on you though unless you fire upon them. So they can be taken one at a time.
Oh and miracle of miracles there is a checkpoint once you kill one of them.
It still has that one shot kill weapons though.
I kill it then we pick up signals from another team. the gang decide to go and see if they need help and to find out what intelligence they have.

Act 2 mission 4
We are now trying to take a hill, on which a jamming system is making life hard for the rest of the soldiers. If we can take out the jammer the navigation systems will work. This will make co-ordination of attacks possible.
We storm a large tank type troop vehicle, and then out over the top of it to a container yard.
Then up the hill, into another container.
Our way is blocked by a gate which we have to blow up.
I fight to the gate and in cut scene we see it getting blown up and the men running through.

Act 2 Mission 5
We run along a small bridge getting attacked by enemies from above.
Then we come to the hill bit again. There is another argus at the top.
And there is some kind of bombardment going on as large chunks of the building behind are falling down the hill.
I go up the hill slowly, cover to cover and it's great fun.
We have to go through a door at the side and in cut scene Sam rides a flyer into getting chased by a load of missiles then flies it down right on top of the argus destroying it.
Of course he survives.

Act 2 Mission 6
Now we come to a heavily fortified defensive position.
Lots of robots then three of the mini-boss romanov's.
A new boss appears, like a tiger with long lashing tail.
We then progress to the final bit here, the jammer and cannons themselves.
We have to shoot two cannons at either side.
There is heavy mini-boss activity stopping us.
Basically we have to take out a large eye that shoots at us while avoiding or killing waves of mini-bosses.
The jammer is broken and we can now use troop transports to get around.

Act 3 Mission 1
The bad guy victor Zaitsev taunts the president in a private video call.
We are flying in a transport and land in a new area. Why? No idea. We are linking up with someone else, hey ho.
We fight our way down a long set of plaza like steps. This looks like an entertainment area of the orbital.
Some new blue fast moving tougher robots. Then some drill armed romanov's.

Act 3 Mission 2
We come to an area where a draw bridge is blocking the way. We ask a flying transport to land on the other side and manually bring the bridge down for us.
Enemies attack from the other side of the bridge where the controls are. Once they are gone the ship lands and puts down the bridge.
We are then attacked by two drill transports full of enemies and the tank with cogs from before.
we then proceed through a door to some elevators. A huge laser is seen outside taking out skyscrapers.
We come to a road, a short fight and then a cut scene.
The enemy have actually brought a ship. inside the orbital!
It shoots nearby and blows up half the road ahead.

Act 3 mission 3
we are now moving down the devastated road.
Which promptly starts to collapse. we have to run headlong through enemy positions. Everything is exploding and the ground is pitching and yawing like mad.
It's quite fun, if short.

Act 3 Mission 4
Burns wants to use air travel to get to wherever the hell it is we are going.
Ivanova thinks it's too risky and the battleship will take them out. Sam agrees and he wants to use a monorail nearby.
This is a weird little mission, we have to ride the monorail car, in a darkened area.
Searchlights have to be taken out with the sniper rifle.
A flyer comes over and has to be shot down, this triggers a rocket attack and we have to take out the lights quickly or be killed in the monorail explosion.
We enter a station and there is a barricade. Sam has to get out and place two bombs on the barricade and get back into the monorail.
Then outside in the light again we see the large cruiser overhead.
We are attacked by a small flying enemy ship.

Act 3 Mission 5
The destroyer which we find out is named the Creon comes in for a landing.
It's funny when people use names in stories that are also real world things. Creon to me is a brand name for a food supplement for people who have had their pancreas taken out.
We are now advancing along a large road. The Creon has landed and transformed into a huge gun.
We have to protect our railgun tanks so they can get close.
There are loads of the saw tanks, thankfully there are some emplaced guns which make quick work of them.
Now we have to shoot up into the leg of the Kreon tank to stop it marching forward.
In cut scene a railgun tank shoots a hole in the side of the Kreon.
Now we have to run across some bridges to the place under the hole in the Kreon.
Heavy resistance on the bridge and the Kreon opens places in it's side which reveal balconies filled with robots.

Act 3 Mission 6
Inside the kreon we go using grappling hooks in cut scene.
A little ride on a cargo transporter introduces us to a new boss.
This thing is like a mangle of metal parts. It changes shape constantly and has a few attacks.
It has lasers, can instant kill you by grabbing and smearing you, or fire machine guns at you.
It needs to be hit enough to expose it's red ball core that is usually hidden amongst the parts.
The core has a health bar, when worn down it's dead.
In the next area the blue faster robots that can fly teleport in.
Now we come to a core area, giant rings fill with energy in timed intervals and we have to make our way through without being blasted to bits.
Robots run interference. we also get back onto a cargo container on rails.

Act 3 Mission 7
We now have reached the critical systems of the Kreon that can be destroyed by one man. A conduit must be blown that will cause a chain reaction.
This is a climb up the side of the Kreon, using platforms, elevators and pulley type switch system.
Lots of robots to kill and another unknown boss.
I reach the summit and the conduit we have to blow up. Only it looks like we will be killed with it when it blows.
Burns will come and pick us up, hopefully.
I break the conduit with some button mashing and Burns saves us in suitably heroic and action movie style.

Act 4 mission 1
Now we are going somewhere else, lost the ability to care about the nonsensical plot.
It's a wooded area now.
We are heading for a dam.
Lots of enemies and two romanovs to fight.
Then a heavily defended gate.
Inside we have to wait for an elevator and are ambushed.
New flying transforming enemies arrive.
A cut scene shows the top of a bridge we need to get across.

Act 4 Mission 2
A new boss named a buzzard appears. crab like bird like transformer. Usual attack types.
Shoot the red bits as usual.
I go across the bridge and into a room, where a gate is opened, then down some stairs on the outside of a building.
Then another argus attacks with some small robots in tow.
We move on through similar stairs and then meet two of the whiptail bosses. Both together are quite hard. Their whip attack is a one hit kill.
Then two Romanovs and a tank.

Act 4 Mission 4
There is some trouble ahead, the enemy have hit a factory and it's melting itself.
looks like we are going to be passing through anyway.
We come through the factory and meet a new enemy, a crystal man shaped robot with a sword, he is a bit like the silver surfer.
He isn't that hard to kill.
Though his death causes a problem, he explodes and a nearby large structure goes up with him. This causes a chain reaction that breaches the outer hull of the colony.
The air starts escaping, pulling large ships down out of the air.
The gang use some escape pod devices to go into the under structure of the colony.

Act 4 Mission 5
We are now in a cylinder, gravity is not present here, though our boots stick us to the floor.
We navigate the circumference of the cylinder shooting up enemies.
Then another unknown, mangle beast.

Act 5 Mission 1
There is debate about letting the soldiers outside have time to get to shelter or closing the doors that will prevent the colony depressurizing and being entirely destroyed.
Burns closes the doors and Sam argues as they watch the men die.
Sam goes back up and Burns stays in the control room.
He speaks with the President and it appears that the attack on san Francisco was not orchestrated by the Russians after all, or at least Zaitsev and the President planned it for a reason.
We are heading to the colony core now, for as yet unexplained reason.
I have a buzzard and a romanov with some normal robots.
Then we have some large laser cannons to destroy.
Once the charges are places a mass of enemies come from the rear and we have to fight them of and then proceed.
Elena is being jammed it seems, she can't provide any support for much longer.
I enter a room and there is a silver surfer to deal with.

Act 5 Mission 2
Elena is cut off. Burns calls and asks where we are. He tells Sam that he is in trouble. Sam sends the remaining marines back to help him and goes on alone.
In the control room Sam finds Professor Candide, he seems to think Sam is a bad guy. He obviously knows the president is up to no good.
Burns appears and shoots Candide, he tells Sam that they are going to use the Microwave weapon to hit Moscow. It appears that The president also ordered the attack on San Francisco.
Burns attacks, Sam kills the remaining marines in cut scene and then we into a boss battle with Burns.
Burns isn't interested in fighting Sam, he wants to get to the manual controls for the targeting of the weapon. He gets on a train and Sam gives chase.
We chase him to the control room and while he has a lot of health he isn't that hard to take down.
In another bemusing turn of events Burns appears to have a change of heart after being beaten and tells Sam to leave. He appears to be going to blow up the microwave weapon and himself. Sam Runs and the marines coming behind who seem loyal to the President shoot at Sam and level their guns at Burns. Burns is blown up. Sam moves on.

Act 5 Mission 3
Moving towards the core of the colony Sam is attacked by Zeitsev, and another wearing a similar suit to him.
They claim that President Winters wants to create a stable world government and war is her way of doing it.
There is more chat, but the smoking and the nonsense story are really to badly done to make any sense.
We fight the two bosses, simple as that.
They turn out to be slave units. Zaitsev also has them rigged to blow.
We escape in an escape pod.

The colony is blown up and Elena thinks Sam is gone with it.
Only two seconds later he appears.
He gives Elena a hug as the shockwave of the explosion hits their ship.
Zaitsev does not seem bothered that things seem to have gone Wrong.
Winters shoots herself.

Credits roll, and it's a mini space harrier style game.
God hard difficulty is unlocked.

340 Achievement points.
Total time played around 11hrs

Mafia II Notes

2011-05-19T06:18:00.001-07:00

Brightness, start game, difficulty, medium is default.

start A A A four button presses to get back into the game, is one not enough?

Present, whenever that is?
Zoom in on a window in a rainy city.
Vito is inside, he is sitting at a table looking through a family album.
He was born in Italy and moved to America.
We see the young Vito and his family arriving in what might be New York, though I don't know if this is a faithful recreation. Seems it's not it's called Empire Bay.
While the city is huge and awe inspiring, the accommodation that Vito lives in isn't.
Vito grows up and turns to petty theft. He is caught and arrested. Instead of going to prison he agrees to join the army and go to Sicily.

In Sicily we see Vito taking part in an attack, he is being aided by resistance fighters.
A captured resistance fighter is being held in the town square, it looks like he is about to be publicly executed.
We get control.

Controls
Left and right analogue sticks as normal. Third person view of character.
Left trigger is aim down sights
Right is shoot.
A is get in and out of cover.
Left bumper is climb.
Left on Dpad choose grenades.
Down on Dpad choose gun.

mission 1
We shoot the executioner then all hell breaks loose. Once all the enemies are downed in the square we have to move to the main doors of the headquarters. A machine gun is just inside the door so we have to climb in through the window.
Inside here we are prompted to throw a grenade through the window.
This blows up the machine gun nest.
Up some stairs, though a window and out onto a balcony we fight. Then we are to take use of an emplaced gun and shoot out from the balcony onto the main square.
After a while a cut scene kicks in and we are blown up.
Things look bleak as Vito lies injured as the enemy come in and kill any survivors.
A mafia don named Don Carlo appears in a tank in the square and basically asks for surrender. The men comply, this impresses the hell out of Vito.
Vito is injured and shipped home.

Mission 2
Vito is met at the station in Empire Bay by Joe a friend from his younger days.
Joe takes him to a bar and seems well connected as he arranges for Vito's injury to be exaggerated and gets him discharged from the army.
Vito is thankful.
We get control again and have to take Vito to his home.
There is a radar with the usual dots to indicate our destination to follow.
Inside we meet his mother and sister.
In cut scene Vito has a meal with his family, we are then told to go to bed.
After finding the bed and sleeping Vito wakes and tells us that he really needs to find a better place to stay.
In the room there are clothes to wear, outside we speak to Momma. She is annoyed that Joe is back in tow with us.
She wants us to talk to a dock supervisor and get a job at the docks.
We are told to go to Joe's
Outside we find our sister Francessca being harassed by a burly man.
We intervene and have to fight him.
After doing so in cut scene we find that our father borrowed money before he died, $2000.
This man wants it back by the end of the week.
I am told to go to Joe's.
I cross a little portion of the city on foot and get to Joe's apartment.
Inside he has two whores in his bed. He promises to find some work for us to help us out.

Mission 3
Joe wants us to meet someone called Gueseppe.
Joes take us outside to a garage and we get to drive his car.
Driving is the usual Sandbox stuff. Left and right trigger for accelerate and brake. B for handbrake and Y to get in and out of the car.
We arrive at Gueseppe's and he is the forger and safe cracking expert. He gives us our army discharge papers and Joe pays him.
He also seems to be the storekeeper.
We are told by Joe to buy a set of lockpicks.
Then we have to pick a practice lock.
It's a little mini game, lifting the tumblers until they turn green and getting all three to stay green.
Outside Joe tells us to steal a car, we do this by picking the lock.
A policeman sees us and we get a wanted rating.
We have to escape the police. which isn't that hard.
We now have to take the car to a body shop, where we get it sprayed and a new license plate.
Joe tells us to drive to Mike's Junkyard.
We meet Mike, Mike wants us to bring him stolen cars, for which he will pay us.
Joe gives us a gun and we have to shoot tires from a car and it's gas tank.
Now we have to drive to a bar where a specific model that Mike wants is.
The car is guarded by some black men who take exception to us stealing it.
A fire fight breaks out.
I then have to drive back to Mikes. The police are unshakable and I have to stop and kill the ones following me to get away.
Back at Mikes he seemed pleased with the car even though it's busted up.
we go back to Joe's and park our stolen car in his garage.
Inside Joe's flat we are told to take a drink from the fridge to heal and then sleep on his couch.

Mission 4
Moma calls and asks if we have been down to the docks to ask about a job.
Seems Vito feels guilty and we now have to go to the docks.
We meet Derek who gives us a job, Steve is given the job of showing us around.
Steve shows us down to a truck that needs loaded with crates.
We have to lift a crate onto the truck.
After a few Vito decides he doesn't want to do the job for the lousy ten bucks that have been promised.
We are told to leave, as I do Steve is waiting and after a conversation Joe's name is mentioned. This changes the tune and we are taken back to Derek.
Derek calls Joe to check we know him and then gives us a job taking haircut money from the workers.
We have to push around and threaten some workers then one resists, we have to fight him.
Derek gives us some money for our trouble.

Mission 5
We have to meet Joe at Freddie's bar.
Joe is meeting with a man named Henry Thomasino.
Thomasino want us to steal gas stamps from an office.
We have to go to the apartment of a woman named Maria, who has the information necessary.
We need to take Maria to visit her sister in hospital to get her to tell us the information.
I drop her at the hospital and she tells us how to get into the building.
I go around the back and climb a fence.
Inside we have to be a little stealthy and avoid guards, We can take them out stealthily if we like. I find the keys and the safe and get the stamps. The alarms go off and the police start shooting. I have to escape and get back to Freddies. Thomasino tells us that the stamps we stole are worthless. They have an expiration date.
We now have to take them to gas stations and redeem them before midnight to salvage the job.
I manage to take the stamps to 5 or six of the gas stations before midnight. You have to get to the gas station and honk the horn at the pump. This starts a small dialogue with the pump attendant and the stamps are sold.
Now I have to go back to Joe's and sleep to end the mission.

Mission 6
We have to drive back to Freddies bar where we meet Thomasino and Joe. A man by the bar is shouting at someone on the phone. He comes over and tells Thomasino to do it. Seems our job for the night is a go. We have to rob a jewelry store, whose owner has not paid back money he owes.
We dress as phone company workers and drive to the mall. Picking a lock gets us inside.
In cut scene we are robbing the store as another gang ram raid it. Things are getting tense and the police are also arriving. We run through the mall being chased by police, there is some shooting though we have to basically follow Joe. We fight some police on the rooftops and have to negotiate a narrow ledge.
Down the other side of the building we see the other gang led by someone called Brian O Neil being arrested. We have to get back to Joe's to end the mission.

Mission 7
A woman comes to us and tells us to meet Joe for lunch. When I go outside she is being harassed by a man who rear ended her. I beat him up, she promises us sex, though Vito declines at this point in time.
At Freddies we meet Luca, the higher up guy that gave the nod for the last job.
Luca asks us if we are ready to kill for him. Vito tells him that as a soldier that was what he did for the government.
As Luca leaves an even bigger fish comes to him and berates Luca about a mistake he has made.
We are to kill a distillery owner who is causing trouble.
We have to pick up a heavy machine gun, we meet Harry who is a gun toting veteran.
Then drive to the meeting point.
Inside the building opposite we wait for the man we need to kill to show up.
They arrive and we shoot them up with the machine gun from the window.
The target escapes inside and we have to go inside and get him.
When we do he shoots Henry in the leg. We then kill him. Now we have to escape with Henry wounded. Joe carries him.
We have to escape the distillery and get Henry to a private doctor.
The money we get from the job is enough to pay our father's debts.
we have to go to our mother's house and give our sister the money.
back to Joe's to save the game.

Mission 8
Vito is arrested for the gas stamp robbery. Vito is sentenced to ten years in prison.
We see Vito arriving in Prison, having his head shaved, being beaten up and eventually getting to his cell.
Joe sends us a message and asks us to contact one of the family contacts in the prison.
In the prison yard we have to find Leo, when we do the Irish idiot we let get busted on the jewel heist finds us and we have to find him.
The fight is stopped and we are put in solitary.
Leo comes to us in solitary and thinks we are useful.
We have to fight one of his men and learn a new counter punch move.
Leo is amused to hear that Luca is asking for 5 grand to enter the family, as it should be free when you have proved your loyalty and worth.
we now have to meet the gym guys and then fight a Chinese fighter.
We go back to our cell and then it's another day.
We follow a guard and are taken by one of Leo's men.
Leo wants us to fight someone, we fight someone in the laundry.
now we get a visitor, it's our sister. She is getting married and our mother is unwell. Vito tells her to go to Joe and get his money, to pay for a doctor and the rest is a wedding gift.
Next we have to go clean some urinals??
We are told to shower and a gang try and have sex with Vito in the shower.
I fight them and am shoved in solitary. A letter arrives, our mother is dead. Our money is used for her funeral.
When we get out Leo tells us that O Neil has attacked his main fighter, we are asked to take care of him.
We now fight O'Neill and it ends in him pulling a knife and we take it from him and kill him with it.
Leo tells us that there are three crime families in Empire Bay. He seems impressed with us and tells us that he is getting out soon, he will try and adjust our sentence. Obviously we will need to work for him on the outside though.

Chapter 7
Four years knocked off the sentence Vito is released.
We go and see Joe.
He is pleased to see us and asks what we plan to do. We ask if we can still work with him.
Joe now works with a different crime family.
We drive to our apartment which Joe has got for us, we are told to pick up a suit.
Now we have to go to Joe's where we meet Eddie, then we have to drive to a brothel.
Here we are asked to work for Eddie. Then everyone but Vito gets drunk.
We now have to go do some business. A very drunken Joe and Eddie inform us that the business is a corpse that is in the boot of the car.
I drive out of the city to a suburban park area and we have to bury the few days old corpse.
Then we have to drive back to Joe's.

Mission 8
Joe arrives outside our flat with a truck.
We take it to a place where men gather to buy cigarettes form the back of the truck.
After a few hours, thankfully skipped past a police car arrives, buys some fags and tells us to get lost.
We drive to a new place and start selling again. a gang arrives and tells us that this is their turf, they want our fags as payment. Joe refuses and the leader tells his gang to hurl a Molotov into the truck. Joe shoots him in the face for the trouble
We then have to chase the others as they flee.
There is no way to chase the fleeing car. We now have to find a phone and call Eddie.
Eddie is displeased to say the least about the loss of the truck and fags.
He wants us to meet with Steve, from the docks and do something about the greaser gang.
We drive to a bar called the crazy horse, which is a greaser hang out. It seems empty Steve wants to shoot it up and then firebomb it. I don't see what the shooting does that the firebombing won't burn to the ground, though Vito seems as unsure about what is going on as we do.
The young kid that was introduced a little while back is brought along, I sense his death coming very soon.
Now we go to the factory where the greasers are and start an all out war.
This is a corridor shooter type section, and the simplicity really shows here.
I run out of bullets at one point and there is no opportunity to find more.
After the long corridors are passed through we find some cars.
We can make the money back for the truck and fags by selling the hotrods that belonged to the greasers.
I have to drive the car to the dock, sell it and then drive to Eddie and give him the money.
Now we drive home to finish the mission.

Mission 9
joe calls and asks us to meet him at the bar. Eddie is there and gives us an introduction to Falcone, the boss of the crime family.
Seems the family that we were involved with before have kidnapped one of the accountants.
We are to find this accountant and rescue him, also to kill Luca if he is involved.
I am to drive to the bar and wait for Luca to leave.
I then have to follow him.
Hilariously Luca hits a police car and the game gets all confused.
I end up being unable to move and having to quit.
Eventually the a.i. or cops manage to let me get to the slaughterhouse.
We have to sneak inside, a man outside tells us that the sewer is the only way in.
I go to the sewer and sneak inside.
We see the men being brought into a building in handcuffs.
I have to sneak inside in a little stealth section avoiding guards.
Then find Luca interrogating the men.
I have to fight one hand to hand then we have a fight with the men.
Eventually I kill them and Luca gets his at the hands of the men he tortured.
We now have to go back to the bar and meet Eddie.
He tell us to go and get cleaned up, as there is something important.
We meet with the bosses of the Family and are taken into the family.
Both Joe and Vito are now fully paid up mafia men.

Chapter 10
We have to meet Eddie over at Joes.
We have a new house of our own now.
At Joe's the big boys are there and it seems that the death of Luca has been the cause of all out war. We are planning to strike at the heads of the rival family.
Joe plans to bomb a meeting at a large hotel.
I have to drive to the hotel, the kid and Joe are with us.
we park in the parking garage and the kid is told to wait in the car, he is the getaway driver.
Joe and Vito get cleaners uniforms.
As we go in a man asks us to clean up some mess.
Henry passes by with a bleeding prisoner.
we go up in a lift.
The mob have taken over the entire floor and we are told that someone has tripped and fell in the conference room. we have to go and clean up. We are left alone in the room to do the job and and we plant a bomb with a wire going out the window.
Then clean up the blood.
Now we go to the roof, however, there are men there so we have a shootout on the roof.
I get to the window platform and have to tie up a cleaner.
We go down to the window and attach the wire to our detonator. Then go up a few floors and blow the conference room.
We go down and find a lot of dead mafia, however Clemente has survived by going to the toilet. we go after him.
There are still lots of guards around.
I chase Clemente into the lifts.
Then down through the kitchen and into the parking garage.
They have killed the kid. Joe is very angry about this.
We now have to chase Clemente's car and eventually run it off the road.
Joe kills Clemente.
We see Joe talk to Eddie about it and he is upset that nobody cared about the kid. Both Eddie and Vito point out that Joe was the one who wanted him to come.
Joe tells Vito to go home, where the mission ends.
Or so we think, late at night Vito gets a call, seems Joe is drunk in a bar and waving his gun around.
The bartender wants us to come get him.
This may be a trap.
Joe is there just as the bartender said and he is waving his gun around. He ends up shooting the bartender totally by accident.
We have to take Joe home, then take the body in a car and dump it in a car crusher then drive home.

Chapter 11
At Vito's house the doorbell rings.
It's Henry, he knows we were responsible for the bomb and the hit on Clemente.
He wants to bail on what is left of his old family which isn't much.
He asks us for an introduction to ours. We take him to Eddie who asks him to kill Leo.
Vito does not want this to happen.
We have to get to Leo before Henry does.
When we get there Leo tells us that Falcone is into drugs and that is why the Vinci family are starting to move against them.
Henry arrives and we try and sneak out but are caught.
Henry is prepared to talk. and we decide that Leo will vanish and Henry will tell Eddie he killed him.
We have to drive Leo to the train station.
Then we drive home.
Francessca is on our doorstep in a state, her husband is abusive and a drunk. Vito is going to talk to him, which probably will end up with blood everywhere.
I go to a party and find Eric almost having sex with a girl in the kitchen of the party.
we fight him and warn him to be nice to Francessca.
We are to go back home.
Francessca calls and basically tells us that we are a monster for beating him nearly half to death.
Vito goes to sleep, he is awoken by the Irish chucking molotov's through his window.
We have to escape the fire, then the guns of the Irish.
We are told to go to Joe's.
We arrive in our underwear at his door and Vito is hot to kill some Irish.
Joe gives us some of his tasteful clothes and we go after the Irish.
We go to their pub and find the men who attacked us. A gunfight in the pub then a chase through the streets after the leader.
We are given keys to an apartment of a friend of Joe's that is empty.
We drop him off and head to the apartment.

Chapter 12
We are to meet Joe and Henry in the park.
Henry has a drug deal he wants us to get in on.
We are to meet a loan shark who will give us the money we need upfront.
the loan shark is greedy about his cut and we end up needing to give him 20,000 of our profits from the job.
We go to meet the Chinese and the deal goes down, as we leave police arrive and something is wrong with them, they aren't real police and shooting starts.
We have to escape and then avoid pursuit.
We then have to take the drugs to our buyers.
A cut scene shows our gang becoming fully fledged drug dealers.
Things don't last long though, the mafia learn of our under the radar dealing and demand a cut. Henry wants to meet us in the park to talk about this.
When we find him he is being cut up by the Chinese. We follow their boss wong back to a restaurant and bust in shooting.
We make our way through half the population of Chinatown and eventually come to the boss.
He tells us that Henry was giving information to the narcotics cops.
He also won't give us our money back. Joe shoots him and now we have to get out.
We leave the restaurant and it's underground drug lab and come out to loads of police.
After escaping we go back to Joe's
We now need to find lots of cash for the loan shark and the Triad's think the mob have started all out war.

Chapter 13
Joe calls, he has a job from Eddie, we need to find 55 thousand today.
The job is a hit, we have to kill a Mr. Angelo.
However Mr. Angelo is under fed protection and all hell lets loose when we kill him.
After escaping we still have a lot of money to make today.
Joe suggests splitting up, we are to go to Derek at the docks and see if he has some work.
At the docks Derek wants us to help him keep the workforce in line, which is threatening to strike.
We go in an armed group to meet the union. Derek basically threatens them with broken hands to get back to work.
Seems a crate fell on one of them and Derek has fired him.
One of the men hears Derek say Vito's name and recognizes him, seems we look like our dad.
He delights in telling Vito that Derek had his dad drowned. Vito asks Derek and Steve basically confirms that it is true.
Vito turns on Derek and we are now helping the dock workers fight Derek and his men.
We fight along the dock and then into the warehouse.
Here we are attack by a lot of men and firebombs.
the fire-bombs are a damn nuisance as their area of damage seems huge compared to the actual fire visually.
There should be better checkpointing as well.
nowhere is safe inside the warehouse.
the shooting gameplay is shit really, guns can't be trusted to actually kill people, you need to shoot in between animation frames.
Eventually I hide in Derek's office and manage to kill him.
We get his money and now have to find the rest of the loan sharks money before the deadline.
I do this by giving cars to brewski's crusher.
We now have to go to Joe's, he isn't home. We go to look for him.
We are told to go to meet Eddie, Eddie tells us that Henry is dead and the tong's killed him. He asks if we have had anything to do it.
Vito denies it, which seems stupid as there must be an awful lot of people who can tell Eddie that they did.
Vito now goes to Gueseppe who tells him that Joe was taken by Vinci's men.
We go to a bar and are met by vinci's men who take us to Vinci.
Joe is being tortured, vito is hung up beside him.
We escape and have to fight our way out of the skyscraper building site.
Once out we have to take Joe to the mafia doctor.
Joe tells us to take the money to the loan shark.
I do and the debt is settled. Vito hates the loan shark Bruno even more after he learns that he was the loan shark that loaned the money to his dad.

Mission 14
Eddie calls and asks that we meet Carlo at the planetarium.
On the way a car stops and people with guns ask us to get inside.
Leo is in the back with the boss of the Tong's. Leo knows what has gone on and isn't happy with us. Though he owes us and has called in some huge favors to help. Turns out that Henry really was working for the feds and Carlo Falcone is close to being arrested. The Tongs want us dead and so does Falcone, the only way Leo can appease the Tongs and control the mafia is to have Falcone taken out of the picture.
We are to kill Falcone.
I get to the planetarium and it's all out war.
After some actually nicely designed fight scenery we get to Falcone in the planetarium itself and Joe is there, it seems that he is going to kill us on Falcone's order. He doesn't and we both fight Falcone and his men.
After we kill him We leave the observatory and find Leo and lots of men outside.
Joe gets in one car and we are told to get in another by Leo.
We drive off and Leo tells us that the deal he did said nothing about Joe. Looks like Joe is going to take the fall for the disaterous drug deal.
The credits roll.

Achievement points 650 for one play-through of main story on normal.

12:21 on in game timer

That is a decent amount for playing through the single player campaign. I have always maintained that for completing the single player all the way through in a game there should be at least half the points. I don't want one hundred percent for a single player game, but two hundred or so is not enough for completing the game.

Killzone 3 Notes

2011-05-01T03:35:00.001-07:00

It want's me to use the move controller, silly game, no!
Oh look an update, what a surprise, 58mb of an update, no background downloading means that I can't even go and look at the PSN store or something while I wait. Enthusiasm dented.
Five and a half minutes later and I am back where I started, here we go.
Select language.
I choose alternate control schemes as it's closer to the COD standard.
A quick text resume of the story.
We are an ISA task force sent to Helghan. We have invaded the Capital Phyrus and on the edge of defeat Visari the dictator leader of the Helghast has nuked his own city.
Visari has been killed by an ISA soldier named Rico and the Helghast are rising up in anger.
A cut scene shows Visari speaking to Radec and Stark. It also shows his daughter.
A montage shows how Visari has led his people then turned on them.

Difficulty is Recruit, trooper, and Veteran. There is an unlockable Elite.
I chose trooper.

Controls
Left and right analogue sticks are the usual move and look around.
Circle is use.
Square is reload.
Cross is jump.
L1 is aim down sights
R1 is fire.
L2 is use cover.
Clicking left stick runs.
dpad switches between weapons.
Select brings up objectives.

A cut scene shows a Helghan leader talking to a huge assembly of soldiers, with a fleet of ships in the sky.
Looks like the Helghast are going to wage war.
A bunch of Helghast ride in a cable car up to a remote icy base.
The car arrives at the station and I disembark. It seems that I am a Helghast soldier for the moment.
I am told to report to a desk and I go through a security checkpoint.
I see a prisoner shuttle arrive and Helghans herd prisoners into the station.
I am told to go to the shooting range.
I then follow another Helgast to the broadcast room.
Seems there is to be an execution.
We see the Sting or Malcolm McDowall lookalike who may be called Stark telling the Heghast that the big attack starts tomorrow. However, to whet the appetite the killer of Visari is to be executed. I see Narville who is captive about to be shot. However the executioner pulls of his hood to reveal Sev the hero.

Fade to black and it's flashback time.
Rico and Sev are arguing on the steps of Visari's palace after his death. soldiers try and revive him and fail.
Narville is pissed and tells us that the ISA is evacuating the planet.
We are joining the convoy.
Helghast ships appear overhead and start shooting at our heroes.
There is much confusion and shooting and vehicles flying in all directions. Sev and Rico are in a tank jeep type thing and end up going over a cliff in a comedy style.
With the jeep busted we are on foot looking to rejoin the convoy.

Mission 1
We progress through the ruined city fighting Helghast.
After a few fights Rico and Sev have a little chat. Sev is angry still, though it seems he can't be too angry with Rico for long.
I fight my way through a spider zoo??
The convoy can be heard in the distance.
We have to clear and open a gate for the convoy.
I fight some Helghast and come to the gate wheel control.
The damn annoying sixaxis bits are still here I see.
The convoy is attacked by some green electricity. It seems random and not intentional though.
The convoy is held up until we can find another way.
Rico boosts us up to a ledge.
In cut scene we see some Helghast collecting some of the green stuff.
It gets on Rico's hands.
We break into a building and fight some Helghast inside.
The convoy is being attacked by anti tank wielding Helghast and we have to get up to the roof to take them out.
I have to use a door breaching charge here, again sixaxis use.
We catch up with Narville and the rest of the convoy now.

Mission 2
Narville is frosty towards Rico still.
Sev thinks Narville's plan is a bad one.
We are moving along a highway. A walker is clearing the way, however it is attacked by a mechanical Helghast weapon. It blows and we are on our own again.
I can revive Rico if he is downed using a health ray.
I progress down the road and the tanks follow.

Mission 3
Narville is told that helghast cruisers are approaching.
He wants to continue punching on through to the crater and extraction. sev and Rico think they are all going to die.
A cut scene shows the Helghan brass planning to wipe out the ISA forces.
Stark it seems is a private company head and weapons supplier. He it seems resents the new admiral and wants power for himself.
Now we have a fun emplaced gun on a jeep section. Lots of tanks and soldiers to shoot at.

Mission 4
We come to a gun battery that is blocking the way. We see a squad who have been sent to take it out struggling to advance against machine gun fire.
Rico stays with the squad and Sev goes to higher ground to flank the machine gun nests.
I flank them and then encounter snipers.
Now we have to provide sniper fire cover while the troops attack the arc weapon.
Lots of snipers to kill then to help them mop up the ground troops. I watch as the soldiers lay down the charges and blow up the arc cannon.

Mission 5
A woman called Jammer calls and asks for help.
Narville tells Rico to stick to the plan.
We see a large electric weapon attacking the cruisers.
Rico and Sev find some walkers to use.
We have a short ride through some road type terrain shooting at tanks and soldiers with the walkers.
Rockets and machine guns, and the walker move the same way as humans do only slowly and more jerkily.
A large Helghast machine can be seen in the distance blowing things to bits.

Mission 6
Rico wants to go and save Jammer. Narville tells him not to and typically he goes off to do it anyway. I suppose he is already up for court martial anyway, what harm can it do to disobey more orders. maybe he has a death wish and wants to just be killed by the helghast rather than face a trial.
Sev tells Rico that he will come with him, Rico tells him that someone has to get Narville to wait.
I encounter a flamethrower Helghast here.
We now fight through a trench like area avoiding normal Helghast and flame troopers.
I get to the end of the level and a cut scene kicks in.
Sev gets to Narville and lots of Isa soldiers are being lifted on the little hovering platforms to the cruisers. Things do not go well. Rico is left behind. The cruisers are attacked by the large Helghast machine which knocks two of them out of the sky causing huge explosions. None of the ISA ground troops it seems are getting evacuated.

Mission 7
We see more of the Helghan power struggles, Stahl makes a play for power, he has an ally among the generals who moves for a vote of no confidence in the Admiral. However, nobody seconds it. Stahl throws a wobbly and leaves, taking his toys with him. This ruffles a few feathers as it seems Stahl's weapons are of great importance.
It looks like he will get his way soon.
The cut scene switches to the ISA, it is now six months since they were left behind and they have set up makeshift camps and are finding slim pickings for rations. Morale is low.
A recon team has gone missing and we are sent to investigate.
The landscape here is jungle like, though a deadly spiny jungle. There are spiders and jabbing plants. Also explosive plants.
After a little walk a cut scene shows a Fast moving assassin creed rip off Helghast attacking a soldiers and killing him. Seriously did they have to copy the wrist blade lock stock and barrel.
We now have to sneak up behind normal Helghast and kill them stealthily.
We also have to snipe a few Helghast and shoot an exploding plant that some are standing near too.
We are told to hide in grass and stick to the shadows.
I come to a cut scene and Sev thinks that the camp has been compromised. In the shadow of one of the wrecks of the downed cruisers there is a large build up of Helghast soldiers.
Sev thinks they know where the camp is and are ready to attack it. Narville is more concerned with an uplink to Vekta than the camp.
We now have more of the same stealth sections to negotiate.
We meet up with some of the robotic walkers as well, as long as we stay in the shadow or in the long grass crouched we can move amongst the helghast slowly.
A cut scene kicks in after a while and we see Helghast shooting an ISA soldier with a gun that shoots the green energy, it seems to hurt a lot then make you explode.
I progress and eventually get to the uplink. This allows Narville to speak to his superiors. They tell him that Vekta has surrendered to the Helghast and that he is to surrender as a prisoner of war. This does not go down well.
The Helghast it seems have traced the signal and dropships head for the camp.
Sev is also attacked at the uplink.
I have to fight a squad of Helghast and one of the spider like robot machines.
Then I make my way back through the jungle to the base, fighting Helghast all the way. Flame troops, and hunters appear.
At the base we are to hold off the Helghast to make time for the evacuation.
I move on into the base and a cut Scene shows Narville under fire. He tells Sev to make for the rendezvous points. Sev does not listen and comes to aid Narville.
I fight here for a while but it looks like a losing battle. After a good few minutes of being overrun a cut scene kicks in.
Sev and Narville fight loads of Helghast but are eventually Captured and put into separate aircraft.
The aircraft fly on to an arctic area and Sev is taunting his captors. He manages to provoke one into hitting him and grabs his knife and stabs him. A harpoon flies through the side of the ship and spears a helghast before ripping the door out. Rico is here on one of the flying carpets. Sev gets over to the carpet and wants to go after Narville. Rico thinks it's stupid, yet it's just one of a long line of stupid plans. Off the gang go after Narville.

Mission 8
We are using an emplaced gun on a flying carpet.
Here we shoot at oil rigs type installations. Shooting at structures and soldiers. We shoot down some dropships and attack another rig. In the process we are shot down in cut scene.
We now have to make our way to a safer place to get picked back up.
After fighting through a living area type military structure we have to fight jetpack wearing soldiers.
Once done we get a jetpack, the plan is to go in under the anti-aircraft guns and blow them up.
I fly across icebergs and up inside the rig. Fight some Helghast on top of it and blow up the anti-aircraft gun with a charge.
Now we are on to the next rig.
Here we have other jetpackers and ground troops to deal with. I have to shoot a bit of the rig to drop a door down so I can reach across to it.
Rico tells us that there is no way up from under the rig to the top. We will have to put charges on the supporting pillars and blow the rig up that way.
I fight along the rig and place the two charges. I now have three minutes to get clear.
Quite fucking irritating here, death quickly from above that you can't see and shit checkpointing.
After learning the positions it's not that hard, but a sudden difficulty spike it is.
The rig is blown and Sev is picked up.
The gang attack but a huge gun is pinning them down.
We have to get large explosives to take it out.
We have to go to the right of the gun and progress through heavy helghast occupied territory.
Then use a new mounted weapon called a wasp to take out the gun. Tanks arrive as well.
I clear the harbour area and go through a door.
Now we are progressing up a hill.
getting into cover is a hit and miss affair.
I fight my way up the hill and into the arms facility. After getting to the cable car a cut scene shows Sev taking two uniforms.
We are now back to the beginning of the game entering the Stahl facility.

Mission 9
We are now back to the start of the game only this time we don't do the same things as we did before. We go off in a different direction????
After some wandering around the facility we get to the execution and a cut scene shows Stahl broadcast to the Helghan population that he intends to perform a coup and take over the leadership of the planet. The army generals are understandably miffed.
We try and shoot Stahl instead of Narville, however he gets away.
Rico frees Narville, though he still holds a grudge.
We now have to get the other prisoners freed. I fight through the facility a bit, there are some new guns here, though ammo is limited.
Electric and green energy zapper.
sev has seen something that he does not like, possibly plans for a weapon of mass destruction.
I fight through a large lab type room and then have to hold position as rico opens a locked door.
Inside there are plans and details that show a weapon that can destroy Earth from orbit. I thought they were Vektans?
We move through more of the factory and jetpack troops attack.
Narville tells us that he had freed the prisoners.
We meet up with him and find ourselves outside, where we can pick up a jetpack.
After killing all the men in the yard we face two aerial fast moving drones.
A cut scene shows Stahl preparing his weapons to leave for Earth, the generals interrupt with a call and basically tell him that he is finished and to turn the weapons over to them. The intend to kill him after he does. Stahl it seems has a few tricks up his sleeve.
Narville and the rest are rescued by Jammer on the flying carpets.

Mission 10
We are chasing after Stahl's crusiers, using an ice sled.
After this fun little interlude is done a cut scene shows the fleet massing at a space elevator.
We are moving through a junkyard towards the space elevator.
We have to blow up some barrels to make a path at one point.
A cut scene shows a fence around the area light up and it seems to use the glowing green stuff. If you don't move you don't get blown up. Sev and Rico decide that a large mobile factory might be used to breach the fence.
We now move through the junkyard again, a bolt gun is the new fun weapons here.
We have to climb a crane to break through to another area and face waves of enemies up on top of the crane.
Now we face one of the heavy armour guys from the second game.
After this a cut scene shows the gang getting onto the mobile factory which seems to eat up the junk and turn it into raw materials.
We now fight our way up the platforms and stairs of the factory.
Then down into the control room.
In cut scene the mobile factory drives up to the fence and knocks a hole in it, nearly killing everyone in the process though.
Narville now wants something that Rico Doesn't, the usual arguments though this time Rico on Sev's recommendation complies.
We fight through an area filled with helghast and come to a cut scene. the gang are moving forwards, so obviously something has to go wrong. A huge mech spider appears and starts blowing everything to bits, time to retreat. Sev goes to find a weapons bunker.
When we fight through a trench which is surrounded by vehicles and men being blasted by the large mech a cut scene starts.
Narville, Sev and Rico do what they do best and argue, Rico even punches Narville this time.
Eventually Sev gets across that saving their own lives isn't an option and they must save Earth or die trying.
Sev chooses to attack the mech's flank.
We now have a large scale boss battle.
We are just below the mech, which towers above us shooting, We have to use the wasp to blows bits of it off. When it fires it's main gun radiator fins come out and dissipate heat. Shooting them off will make it overheat eventually, so that seems to be the plan.
Troops and tanks also run interference, with the fire coming from the mech being hard to avoid as well. There are little bunkers, though they get shot to bits fairly quickly.
After blowing it a cut scene starts.
Things look ok, then quickly things look bleak, the mech, which i think is called a MAWLR appears to be badly damaged but not borken yet and attacks, it looks like Jammer and Narville are killed.
Sev takes it badly and as usual goes looking for something to shoot at.
We have to make our way to an elevator. Then a cut scene shows assassins coming to kill Sev, he is saved by Narville and Jammer on a magic carpet and then rico saves them.
We now have to ride a magic carpet which is driven by someone else and shoot anything on the Mawlr that is shooting back. Once done we shoot up it's gun mount and the gun falls off. Then it's bridge and it's downed.
A cut scene shows more arguing then the gang going up to the space station using the space elevator.
In space Stahl is up to no good.
We fight along a corridor and into an airlock.
In cut scene Stahl and the Autarch meet, there is some banter and Stahl turns his own weapons the military, his cruiser against the rest and he has much better guns.
The Autarch isn't down and out though and he stabs Stahl and kills his guards.
Now the Helghast are fighting amongst themselves the ISA decide to try and take out Stahl's ship.
Sometimes when you get wounded you know that you aren't going to get saved. The time here is wasted and it's annoying.
Gravity is turned off here for a bit, only to show that the programmers could do it.
We turn a wheel and open a door.
There are lots of soldiers, a heavy and flyers to kill.
Stahl and the autarch have a final fight and the Autarch is killed. Stahl leaves for his cruiser and tells his men to blow the station, even though his own men are on it.
Now we fight along a corridor and eventually get to the ships.

Mission 11
In space we are using the guns while Rico drives. we shoot some small ships with gun and rockets. Then come up on Stahl's crusier. We fly around it shooting it up. It is disables and starts falling out of orbit. Stahl tries to land it and we give chase. After avoiding incoming rockets for a bit we can launch a nuke. The nuke blows up the ship and chain reaction of the green energy spreads around the whole planet.
Everything in space is destroyed. Jammer tells us that the whole planet is silent.
Sev asks how many people were down there and the credits roll.
During the middle of the credits a cut scene shows Stahl's guards coming up to an escape pod type device and saying welcome home sir, though Stahl is not shown.
then more credits.

9 hours 30 minutes.
26% of the trophies.

Crysis 2 Notes

2011-04-12T10:32:00.001-07:00

Update time

Set up brightness, choose hard drive to save on.
Oddly I can resume game, even though I have never played it, oh, no I can't it's ghosted, although it didn't look like it until I moved the selection highlight.

Difficulty next, Easy, normal, hard veteran, all dressed up in silly names.
I choose Normal, because, well I am normal, not a supersoldier really at all!

Controls
Usual analogue sticks for looking and moving.
B is crouch.
A is jump.
Y changes weapon. Double tapping Y brings out grenades.
Left trigger is aim down sights.
Right trigger is fire.
Dpad up for visor.
Clicking right stick is melee.
Clicking left stick is run.
Right bumper engages cloak.
Left bumper is armour mode.

We hear a radio sports broadcast, over shots of New York.
There is talk of an alien plague that has leaked from a biolab. Then all of a sudden the news reports show riots in lots of cities.
The game itself starts, I am in a submarine in the Hudson river.
We are part of a marine squad that is being sent to extract a scientist named Gould from New York.
There is some brain donor style marine banter, seems we have been drinking, it's given as an excuse for our character not talking.
Pretty quickly the confidence drains as the sub is hit by something.
We are told to abandon ship.
There are fires and water everywhere.
We escape the sub and swim to the surface.
There is lots of destruction and the statue of liberty is nearly destroyed in the distance.
Something red comes up from underwater and flies above the swimming men and starts killing.
We are hit and everything goes black. Our character is named alcatraz, and he isn't dead yet.
We see someone in a nano suit come to the rescue and shoot down the alien craft.
He tells Alcatraz that destiny is a bitch and it's all up to him now.

The credits then play with a video showing a nano suited warrior fighting against humans.
Showing off all the different modes of the nano suit. Stealth, armour, strength etc.

Second Chance
Alcatraz wakes up in a room, he finds a body nearby. In flashback we see that the nano suited warrior was named Prophet, he has given Alcatraz the suit because he was contaminated by something. He tasks Alcatraz with protecting Gould. We see him shoot himself.
We have to break a padlock to escape the room.
Outside are large cages filled with dead bodies, there are dead yellow suited workers as well.
I pass through some more devastation and a call comes in from Gould asking where Prophet is.
We are taught to power jump across large gaps.
Gould tells Prophet that he has to find the marines. He already has, obviously Gould does not know.
I am shown how to jump up to a floor above by grabbing a ledge.
I open a door and am looking out over Battery park, Liberty in the distance.
We are shown the visor function. This allows us to tag enemies and see supplies highlighted on the display.
fist we have to find ammo for our pistol.
I then kill two soldiers.
We are told to head towards castle Clinton.
Inside we are shown the stealth feature.
I take out a soldier and then there are two more inside the castle.
They are talking and it seems that prophet has went rogue from the military and the nano suit is being blamed for spreading the plague.
It appears we have suddenly been locked into a suit that is public enemy number one and everyone seeing it thinks we are Prophet.
I kill the soldiers and am told to leave the fort via the roof.
Now in battery park there are more soldiers.
He I see the system the game employs, being gung ho gets you lots of heat. Being stealthy allows you to sneak around and pick off enemies.
They will go around in patterns, until you make a noise, then they come and investigate.
There is also a fairly good cover system, which see you leaning over cover by aiming when next to cover.
I fight through the area which seems to be a processing centre where people were screened for plague.
Inside the decontamination area I am told to stealth kill a few soldiers.
We then go through a large decontamination machine and force open the doors.
Looks like tutorial is over.

Persona Non grata.
I am now in the Wall street area and I am shown an alien floating between the buildings.
I negotiate the barricades and come to a fight, I am shown armour mode which allows us to take punishment at the cost of suit energy.
I find some more soldiers burning bodies.
This is a big fight, each area where you find enemies seems to have a set amount of solider to kill. There is the option to be stealthy, to hide and even just pass by the enemies without engaging them. By accident I found sewers that would let me pass under the soldiers.
I take the gung ho approach as usual and fight it out.
I enter the subway and find some infected people who are still alive, but look far from well.
Gould tells us that there may be a lot of activity in the subway.
There are little biomechanical bugs running around doing things with the bodies of the infected.

Sudden Impact
We are shown an intercepted transmission. The military have no cure for the nanovirus that is infecting people. They are now just shooting people instead of trying to help. They are also designating us as public enemy number one as well.
An incoming alien threat is detected.
I find a shotgun here.
There is something going outside, something noisy. As we pass between two buildings in a walkway a huge alien ship smashes through it hotly pursued by two helicopters.
They shoot down the alien ship. Gould sounds excited, he wants us to get samples from the ship, he thinks if we can get him samples then maybe they can roll back the invasion.
We have to fight down a street filled with loads of soldiers then at the crash site clear some more soldiers.
We have to investigate two pods which are empty.
Then find a way down to the crashed ships innards. We use a lift to go down under the crash and scan the gloop that has came out of the ship. It seems that it is melted down human tissue. Gould wants alien tissue.
We come back out of the hole in the ground and find our first alien. It grabs us and it seems to be trying to work out if we are a friend or not. The suit can't interface with whatever it is sending on a nano level. Gould tells us to kill one and get a sample. I do so and we now have the ability to upgrade the nano suit by taking loot from the alien bodies.
I am told to take the sample to Gould.
I pass through a tunnel and find the soldiers fighting the aliens, at least they are off my back.
We pass along the tunnel and fight some aliens.

Road Rage
Gould tells us that there are new protocols unlocking in the suit. Someone named Hargreaves is named as the author/designer of these upgrades.
Gould is still needing us to get to him fast.
I pass through a sewer type area and come out to see a helicopter nearby. In cut scene we see Lockhart, the commander of the Cell forces we have been fighting talking to someone named Tara. Tara wants Lockhart to take Prophet alive, and Lockhart tells her that Hargreaves only need the suit back really and he is going to kill Prophet.
We are now passing along Franklyn D Rosevelt drive to get to Gould. There are lots of soldiers to shoot at along the way.

Tectonic shift
We have to make our way through a cell checkpoint set up on the road, what is left of it after an earthquake knocks it down.
We then get to drive a vehicle with rockets along the road and fight lots of vehicles and helicopters.
Then we have to go back on foot.

Lab rat
Gould has fled to a nearby safe house, however he realises that the address is on his computer, which he is sure the Cell forces will be trying to crack. We have to go to the lab and destroy the computer.
I fight a lot of soldiers in a dock like area then get into the warehouse lab.
Inside the lab I destroy the computer, then have to deal with a swat team type attack on the main room and a helicopter circling the outside.
Survive long enough to blow up the helicopter and you can escape through the hole in the wall it makes when it crashes. I run along the docks and back into the city.
We are now in the building where Gould is.
He is pleased to see us and urges us to sit in a chair which will check out the nanosuit.
He learns that we are not prophet and is going to attack, until he sees the memory taken from us of Prophets last words and his suicide.
Gould tells us that the alien virus is related to Kalamari. Hargreaves designed the suit but it seems to be evolving on it's own thanks to the injection of alien dna.
We need get the new code analysed and see if a cure for the spore can be made. However Gould does not have the equipment. The safe house is attacked and we have to fight off the Cell.

Gate Keepers
We have to get to a Cell base which has a suit cradle. That is the only way the analysis can be done. There is one nearby, though heavily guarded, Gould thinks that by using a tunnel we can access through the wall street church we can sneak in.
I have a long trip over the rooftops before encountering some alien vs Cell fighting.
I have to kill both of them really.
Next we go through a building and out the other side to find the Wall street Church littered with Cell. Gould suggests we cause a diversion so he can sneak inside.
We have to set off two ammo dumps and fight off the cell that are stirred up.
We then go into a door under the church. Here we see an alien cloak.

Dead Man Walking
This is a straight fight across three rooftops with lots of sniping.
We have to blow open a door to get down inside the building.
Inside we meet Gould, he shows us into the suit room which only had one operator.
Holding him at gunpoint Gould gets us to sit in the chair and we find out that the only thing keeping Alcatraz alive is the suit now. His wounds are massive with extensive bone and organ damage. Essentially the suit is now a life support machine.
Lockhart and Tara Stickland arrive and take over. we are escorted out of the building, to be taken to Hargeaves. The fact that we are not Prophet is made known to Lockhart. We are bundles into a helicopter and flown away, as we are taking off a large alien device errupts from the ground and the helicopter is knocked out of the sky.
We are affected by gas which is released from the alien spire. It kills the soldiers around us but after some nano confusion the suit reboots and we have to use a defibrialtor to restart our heart.
Aliens attack in increasing numbers, we are told to leave, a manhole seems to be the way.
As I head for it a cut scene shows meteors flying from the sky, larger enemies appear from them and attack. Everything goes black.

A flashback that seems to belong to Prophet shows scenes presumably from Crysis 1 of suite soldiers and aliens.
I wake up being swarmed on by the little spider aliens.
Hargreaves talks to us, he tells us that there is something we need to see in City Hall.
On the way we pass through an evacuation centre which is full of the dead and some dying still left alive.
Hargreaves tells us that the spiders break down the bodies so reducing enviromental impact.
We now have to fight past aliens to get into city hall.
We come out into a large open area of wrecked street and rail line.
There are lots of aliens to fight.
Hargreaves tells us about the aliens, though not too much and it's obvious he admires them.
We fight through the area and encounter one of the larger aliens which takes some killing.
We then enter a tunnel.

Dark Heart
Hargreaves tells us that there are plans to blow a flood barrier which will flood the lower end of Manhattan. He does not think this is a good plan, though he it seems isn't in overall control.
We are now in the Subway and Hargreaves is urging us to go to the alien hive and investigate in the hope of causing harm.
We pass through tunnels passing wrecked flaming trains and fighting aliens.
Then we come to a large open area where we have to take out all the aliens then disable an alien machine. Hargreaves tells us that we must continue on doing this.
Another spore conduit is broken. Hargreaves tells us to hurry as the flooding is about to take place.
I take out the last conduit and Hargreaves tells us to get up above ground as quickly as possible.
I run to the surface and towards a helicopter, however it's too late the flood catches me.

Semper Fi or die.
I come to and find a squad of marines, I thought everyone else was dead?
I escort them to a location that is safe to defend. Then I have to scout on towards their extraction point. I find another squad further on, we see a helicopter which has come to take them to safety. Of course the aliens object and their pods drop in. One of their dropships also gets in on the action.
Lots of aliens between us and the objective.
We come to a defensive position and have a little last stand, some waves of enemies and then the dropship to shoot down with missiles.
Hargreaves tells us over the comms that the suit is now evolving into a powerful bioweapon against the Zeff.
He needs us to get a stabilising agent from his labs. Our mission is now to get to and into the Hargreaves building.

Corporate Collapse.
After a short trip through some extremely broken up city we reach the building. I am accompanied by a few marines now. One is named as Chino.
I have to find a gun turret to blow open the locked doors to the parking garage of the building.
The garage is sunken under water and we have to swim.
Inside the building we find some soldiers who are it seem not wanting to follow Hargreaves orders anymore. They still think that we are Prophet and want a fight.
I fight my way to an elevator and then to a security area. It is empty and the computer is in the middle. As I access it Lockhart appears on a big screen and it's an ambush. He obviously opposes Hargreaves.
I kill the soldiers sent to kill me and now have to reboot the security system.
The huge windows here are underwater, an alien appears at the glass and breaks it causing a huge tsunami. We crawl from the water and talk with Hargreaves, he is mad and is going to deal with Lockhart. He tells us to regroup with Chino at Grand central Station.

Call to arms
We move through some sewers and broken up areas hearing gunfire and shouting. It seems that there is a battle going on between the army and the Zeff.
We find a new alien, it is called the pinger and it seems to use ultrasound blasts.
It takes a few rockets and c4 blasts to kill but it goes down fairly easily.

Train to Catch
We are now assisting in the military and remaining civilian evacuation.
Hang on if there is a plague why are there soldiers with no suits and why are we evacuating, won't that spread the plague.
I cross a street and help some pinned down soldiers then a dropship arrives and bombs the hell out of Grand Central station.
We have to reactivate two anti aircraft batteries which take out the dropship. We then have to go into Grand Central Station, the place is burning and we have to use armour to pass through the flames.
Out the other side and more enemies to fight.
Here we have more mini bosses and lots of squiddies.
We now get aboard a convoy of vehicles filled with soldiers and civilians.

Unsafe Haven
We still assisting the soldiers evacuation. They are being hit by fire from a large gun and we are to block the line of fire to buy more time.
This is a large area which is filled mainly by road. We have to progress along it fighting until we come to a locked door, which is opened by pressing a switch.
This is the building that is to be brought down. Inside we have to hit three switches to arm the bombs then get out.
We are to make out way back to the station when the man with the detonator is killed. We now have to go and find his body and detonate the bomb.
On the way back to the station a miniboss appears.

Terminus
Now we are to escort the trains as they depart.
We are challenged by freaked out soldiers and making our way past suited tech's who are tending the disease ridden civilians.
We pass through a gate and see that the Cell soldiers have been disarmed and caged.
In the next area we meet the military brass and Gould is with them.
Gould is told to get on the trains with the rest of the civilians.
The military leader believes that Tara Strickland let him go as there is no way he could have got away from her if she didn't let him go. We are told that Tara is a decorated Navy Seal.
We see the trains and the civilians being put aboard.
The Zeff arrive back in the main hall and we are sent to buy time for the trains.
Here we fight lots of Zeff soldiers a mini boss and a Pinger.
We are given a vehicle and ride emplaced gun on it, we are going to Times Square.

Power Out
We are told that we have fifteen minutes to get to Times square where Vtol jets are ready to take us out of New York.
We have only fifteen minutes before they leave.
Now we have another hold position scene, this time in Times Square.
Pingers and mini bosses with lots of Zeff squiddies.
Next we go through to the vtols and see a lot of them take off. We are chatting as the last few come in to land and take people away, the ground starts to shake and a huge spire erupts from the ground.
Hargreaves comes onto the radio and tells us that we are all going to be dead in under a minutes if we don't do as he tells us immediately.
We have to go inside the spire, a door opens conveniently and we go inside.
We are drawn up inside it and the suit communicates again.
We are chucked out of the spear high up and land with a bump.
The spire sends out it's spore though this time it kills the Zeff.
Not them all though the Pingers are alive though badly damaged. We have some quicktime like button presses to survive and jump onto the helicopter.

Eye of the storm
We are to go to Roosevelt Island and get Hargreaves from a place called the prism.
We jump from the Vtol and land on the Island. We are now fighting Cell soldiers again.
I progress along the island and into a building. Inside Hargreaves tells us that Lockhart has set an emp trap for us.
I fight through an elctric sub station.
Hargreaves wants us to re route the power so that the emp trap fails.
I smell a trap from Hargreaves here.
I go in and reroute the power and then have to get back out in the darkness using nano vision.
Back outside we are heading for the guard tower.
This is the trap and it does not harm us, seems Hargreaves is on the level so far.
Lockhart is angry that we are not dead.
I have to escape down a grate and then back out at the guard house.
Now we have to kill Lockhart, which is done by storming his nano shielded room and throwing him out the window.
Hargreaves tells us that he is opening Prism and we are to come to him.
I do and this time it is a trap. The EMP goes off knocking the suit Offline.
Tara Strickland can be seen coming towards us.

Masks Off
We wake up in an operating room and Hargreaves is talking over video link. Two soldiers and a doctor are in the room. Electronic systems start cutting us out of the suit.
Hargreaves tells us that he is sorry for this and that a grunt just won't do for the job.
We see flashbacks to Prophet and Hargreaves arguing about the suits being symbiotic and that they turn soldiers into dead men walking.
Hargreaves tells Prophet that to beat the Zeff something more than human will be needed.
Tara Strickland comes in and kills the guards and takes us away with her.
Back on our feet she tells us that Hargreaves found Zeff technology 100 years ago at Tunguska.
Tara tells us that we need to get to Hargreaves and kidnap him. She tells us to do it while she secures a helicopter.
I go on into the secure area and eventually find Hargreaves study.
He is augmented also using alien technology. His body floats in a tank while he talks to us from a video screen.
He seems to sense defeat now and grudgingly tells Alcratraz that he must do the job.
He tells us to take an injection that rises from the desk.
The aliens it seems lived on Earth a long time ago. Their machinery is still here deep under the surface.
They have not invaded us they are coming home and as Hargreaves puts it not much liking what has grew behind the fridge since they have been away.
Zeff dropship into the room and it goes on fire. I escape through a door.
We now have to get off the island. Hargreaves has set a self destruct timer in action.
We have to get across the bridge back to Manhattan, there is a lot of fighting between Zeff and Cell here. Hargreaves has ordered them to help us now.
The bridge is blown when the island goes up and we see a cut scene of us barely surviving the devastation.

Out of the ashes
Gould and Tara meet us when we crawl from the water.
We get into a vehicle and are going towards Central park.
The main Zeff base is under the reservoir in central park.
We have to get the suit in there and it can nano virus attack the Zeff.
There is a driving sequence where we shoot lots of Zeff with rockets and a cannon.
We are blown up and have to go on foot.
There is air support available, though we need targeting aid.
I have to go inside a building and go to the roof to provide targeting for the air support.
There is a drop ship that we have to mark and it is shot down by a jet.
Now we have to get back down.
We fight across rooftops and when we reach a view above central park half the park starts to rise out of the ground.

A walk in the park
We fly into the raised spire that has risen up out of Central park and I am dropped onto it.
We have to make our way over the uneven and sometimes vanishing entirely ground here.
I fight two large groups of enemies in what is left of the park, I find myself battling at the Bethesda fountain.
Here we have to break the Ceph machines like we did earlier.
One machine
Two machines.
Three machines and we have to slide down a pipe that falls from the spire.
Now we fight nanosuited enemies that can cloak, they are hard to kill.
Once I kill them I enter the heart of the ship. I have to make my way along a corridor against what appears to be a strong wind, though it looks like I am on fire.
There is some quicktime and I jump into the heart of the spire.
It looks like Alcatraz is dead as everything goes white.
A view from outside shows a pulse of white energy coming from the spire which kills all the Ceph in New York.
We see Gould, Tara and civilians looking around pleased and celebrating.
Prophet appears and tells Alcatraz that they may have won this battle but they haven't won the war. Looks Like Crysis 3 is on it's way. I see Alcatraz get up and someone speaks to him, I miss his name, maybe Rasch. The nano suited figure declares himself to be Prophet.

12 hours by my reckoning
10 hours on in game clock
315 achievement points for one playthrough on Soldier / normal.

Homefront Notes

2011-03-29T06:29:00.001-07:00

Patches already? only been out half a week.

No difficulty choice?

Controls
Usual analogue sticks
X is pick up / use / climb etc.
B is crouch / go prone.
A is jump.
Y switches weapon

Clicking left stick runs, right stick is melee.

Right bumper is grenade.
Left bumper is C4

Clicking left stick sprints.

We see news, North Korea testing nukes, UN sanctions. kim Jong Ill dies and his son takes over. It is 2013 and Korea is united, the middle east explodes and oil is scarce. It is now 2017 and everything is going to hell. Korea is taking over and is now called the Greater Korean republic invading all it's neighbors. A satellite is a a secret EMP weapon that knocks out USA power. The Koreans invade America.
The montage of stock footage ends with America invaded and it's people subjugated.

Mission 1
The game starts in a small room, the radio tells us that we are in Colorado.
The door is hammered on and three soldiers barge in. We are forced against the wall and one of them tells us that we are unpatriotic.
We are smashed in the face with a rifle butt and kicked down the stairs.
Outside loads of people are being herded around and we are dragged towards a bus.
We are herded onto the bus and as it drives slowly along the street we see about fifty people being tied up and cuffed, loaded onto vehicles. Some resist and are beaten, some run and get shot. A mother and father are lined up against the wall and shot in front of their very young child.
We are told by another bus passenger that these people will be taken to a labour camp.
The bus drives through a security checkpoint into a deserted broken down part of the city.
A lorry rams it and rolls the bus. A rebel comes aboard and knife the soldiers and sets us free. we run through a shop and are followed by soldiers. I get an assault rifle.
The people we are with are Connor and Rhianna, seems they targeted us for rescue for some as yet unknown reason.
I fight though some buildings and come to a petrol station, we fight from inside the shop as trucks filled with soldiers arrive.
Eventually it all blows up and we run off into a suburban area.
I am told to wait as a tank and loads of soldiers pass down a street then sprint past behind them.
I come to a crash site of a plane and we fight soldiers through the wreckage.
The grenade indicator is the same as call of duty. In fact an awful lot is similar.
An APC needs C4 thrown at it and detonated twice.
We move into a civilian area and meet another resistance man. He seems to have some sort of plan involving gas and us being a pilot.
He is angry that Connor brought us to this residential area. He is proved right as the army arrive and starts shooting everyone, rebel or innocent.
We have to defend a house under heavy siege until tear gas is thrown in.
Then we run, a woman with a baby is hidden in the backyard and we run on to draw the army away from her.
We move into another house and the rebels have some heavy gear of their own. We get to use a humvee that is driven by remote control. It just needs pointed at stuff and it goes and shoots at them for us.
I use it to take out a few enemy vehicles and then a plane comes and bombs the area.

Mission 2
I wake up in a house, seems to be a rebel settlement, evidence of children and plant crops.
Boone and Connor argue about the timing of the plan.
After exploring the eco commune we are asked to go on a mission with the rebels.
We go through a tunnel and are told that the resistance built loads of similar tunnels.
We come up into another street.
There is an automatic sentry turret here, it is a chaingun connected to sensors.
We have to throw a grenade at it and stay out of it's searchlight beam.
Then we meet a patrol and fight them.
We then meet up with Rhianna in a school. She has some mortar shells.
Boone has been wounded, he is taken home by Rhianna.
We are going to recon a labour camp.
Recon seems to mean full frontal assault to these people.
We have to fight our way up a street, using back alleys and take out a sentry tower.
Seems we are looking for someone inside the labour camp. The full on attack at the front gates is a diversionary tactic.
We sneak inside using a tunnel and ditch our rifles, keeping only our pistols.
We are told to ask around for Arnie.
A slow walk around the camp reveals intense hardship, like an Indian slum with armed guards.
We find Arnie, who is meant to be leading us to some buses we are going to do something to.
Not very good at explaining the plot here guys!.
Anyway Arnie is a double crosser and we are captured. In slow time we shoot our way out.
We have to climb some stairs and take out all the guards on the balcony above where the two rebels are pinned down.
We then go into the guard station and take three beacons for some unspecified reason.
The plan is finally explained. We are tagging three fuel tankers. Which we will then be able to track. The plan is to fly out following them to a remote location where their support will be negligible and take the tankers.
We come to a baseball field and find the army digging mass graves with loads of victims to toss in.
We fight our way around the field until we take out two towers. We then have to evade a helicopter gunship. To do so we hide amongst the bodies.

Mission 3
We see Boone back to health and we are going on another mission, getting into a van.
There is a mortar in the van.
We are to be a sniper.
I follow rhianna up onto the roof of a building.
We are now looking down onto a walled yard with lots of soldiers.
The van is driven into the compound and crashed, it is designed to bring the soldiers towards it to kill more of them. The weapon we saw earlier is used, white phosphorous. It is a mortar shell that goes up and then rains down a flammable substance which coats and burns anything below, including people. Lots and lots of soldiers die. We get to snipe. Then a second shell misfires and nearly hits us, lots of rebels and Koreans are caught in this blast.
We have to run through flames towards a tower. Which is then brought down by a helicopter.
We are nearly killed by a soldier when the goliath makes a reappearance.
We attack a more soldiers and vehicle using goliath.
Then we go inside a building and fight lots of soldiers.
We come out into a yard and find the tankers. They are leaving and we have to run to them and throw the tracking device onto one.
We then shoot up some soldiers and regroup.
We go back inside the building for some reason and shoot up some more people. The place is coming down around us and on fire.
We go to some stairs and head up. We are told on the radio to get to the parking lot, weren't we just there?
We go out and use goliath again to shoot soldiers.
We then have to sprint to a truck.
On the truck we have to use goliath to take out pursuers.

Mission 4
We are back at the little homestead, only the Korean's have been to visit. Everyone is dead and it is all burnt to the ground. Boone lies dead in the middle of it all.
Rhianna is distraught. Connor tells her that they have to go.
We are ambushed in a street and have to use goliath. The soldiers target goliath using rockets.
We then have a tank to deal with.
We are heading for the wall now, a wall built around what I don't know.
The Koreans are bombing the hell out of the civilian town in retribution for the resistance attack.
Rhianna is despondent, Connor tells her that we must honor Boone by carrying out his plan.
we meet some fairly banged up resistance fighters and make a plan to breach the wall.
Connor wants all the c4 they have to be placed on goliath and use it to ram and blow a whole in the wall.
We progress to some well defended barricades and must storm them and open the gates.
There is a little bullet time sequence here where I burst through a door and shoot people with a shotgun.
really bad checkpointing here.
We have to take out about four rpg armed soldiers and then open the checkpoint door.
We then have goliath arrive and shoot it with an rpg. This blows a hole in the wall. We steal an army humvee and drive through the hole. This is now an emplaced gun section.
We are told that we are going to a farm to collect a helicopter.

Mission 5
We are told about life after the EMP, which saw modern civilization break down, food became scares and countryside areas became dangerous places, cannibalism is hinted at.
The farmers were known to Boone, Hopper who is Asian is told to wait outside.
The chat with the farmers doesn't get much past the fact that Boone is dead, their leader seems to think the deal is off and just wants to have Rianna as his sex slave. Fighting breaks out and we are into a head on gunfight with the farmers.
We regroup after the first group of farmers and are now going to sneak in and steal the helicopter.
In not so subtle terms we are told this is a stealth mission. We are given a sniper rifle.
The farmers are redneck nutjobs, who were probably batshit insane before the war.
There are hanging bodies and Korean heads on pikes dotted around.
We follow a scripted path and see that the farmers are acting the same way that the Koreans are towards their prisoners. Is this a lesson on how war dehumanises people?
We shoot a few snipers in high places and watch as Rianna chokes out a guard. Then into a garage.
A Korean helicopter flies over spouting propaganda and asking for resistance members to be turned in. It is shot down. If we steal the chopper without taking the rpg's out then it will be a short flight.
We see the farmers making a Korean soldier dig his own grave before shooting him.
Incidentally I see a QR code on the wall here and it gives me a wallpaper.
More stealthy movement and shooting at select targets then it's back to normal with a pitched battle. The Korean helicopter that was shot down has some survivors and they are fighting the farmers.
We fight both sides and push on through the area.
We can see the church where the helicopter is supposed to be. It passes overhead and appears to be landing at the church.
The chopper is heavily guarded, we are to go up into the bell tower and provide sniper cover for the other three who will attack head on.
I have to go alone and attack the church, after getting inside and halfway up I die and am sent back right outside the church to assault it again. Poor checkpointing is no excuse for a short game.
I get to the top of the tower and find a sniper rifle. Connor tells me what to shoot at.
After carefully shooting a few guards Conner then drives a truck straight at the helicopter and stirs up a hornets nest, so much for the careful approach!
I have to jump from the bell tower down the scaffolding and make it to the helicopter through the mess.
I get to the helicopter and we see it take off in cut scene.

Mission 6
This is a helicopter sequence and surprisingly I am actually in control.
It's quite hard to survive very long, it seems to be asking a lot of you straight off.
One or two hits from the rockets take you out straight off.
We chase the convoy of tankers. Then take out their escorts.
Now we have to hover close to the tankers and let the gang jump onto them and hijack them.
Now we have to escort the tankers and protect them from missile batteries and road blocks.
We take down a bridge in the progress and the tankers have to take a detour.
This is quite a fun section where we cover the convoy as it goes through a town and protect it from solider's, tanks and another helicopter.
There is a large road bridge out of the town and one of the trucks breaks down. we have to protect it as Hopper places c4 to take out the bridge. This will stop any pursuit.
We have a lot of incoming vehicle to deal with.
Then the bridge is blown and that's it. We are to deliver the fuel to what is left of the military.
We arrive at the military base and join in on an assault near San Francisco.
I am to get into a helicopter.
We have a nice scene as we ride towards the golden gate bridge in the chopper and then start the fight. We have to use a grenade launcher to take out soldiers as we circle one of the bridge pillars.
Then we land and take an area from the Koreans.
Next we push on and find a tank. We have to avoid it's attacks and find something to kill it with.
It's all scripted but it's breathless fun. I find an rpg and then we shoot the tank thrice to kill it.
Now we have too climb up the bridge to the top.
At the top we meet up with the gang and some more soldiers.
We then move along the bridge with a convoy shooting the place to hell.
At a point we are blown off the bridge in cut scene and clamber back onto a lower level.
WE have to fight along underneath and we come up behind the sentry guns that are holding up the gang.
After the sentries are down we have a helicopter to shoot down.
Then we push on to destroy anti aircraft guns.
On the anti aircraft gun platform we have to defend until Hopper reprograms them and stops them shooting our planes down.
We then get to use air support to take out the convoy ahead of us.
Now we get into a humvee and meet a goliath.
We are chased about by it and have to use missile counter measures
We eventually shoot it and it blows up in our face.
In cut scene we see a convoy coming in, the air support has no firm target on it and needs something to shoot at. Connor gets up and using a flare runs towards the convoy. This allows the pilots to aim at the flare. Of course Connor is holding it and is vapourised along with the Koreans.
That's it, news reports tell of the fight in San Francisco and talk about European involvement coming to aid America. All set for Homefront 2 then?

4 hours 30 minutes.
120 achievement points which is quite stingy, though I suppose i only put in four hours work.
I found the difficulty settings buried in the options menu, strange choice. I was playing on normal.

Bulletstorm Notes

2011-03-24T04:17:00.001-07:00

First task is to enter the now ever present EA online pass. I firmly fall in the camp that abhors the selling of second hand games by corporations and as such have to endure these things with a smile.

Next up is to choose difficulty, there are 5 options, though I am firmly a normal man these days. Gone are the days of being masochistic and choosing hard levels. Not coming straight from Dragon Age Origins where even the gamer baiting casual difficulty was annoyingly hard.
So normal it is.

Controls
Left and right sticks as usual.
Clicking left stick crouches.
Left trigger aims down sights.
Right trigger is Fire.
B is kick.
X is use.
A is used to climb over low obstacles, holding it runs. Double tapping A slides.

Prologue Chapter 1
On the road to hell
We see a space ship with a skull painted on it.
Presumably on board the spaceship two beer drinking men are interrogating a man tied to a chair, who sounds very scared. Probably because the drunk men are trying to shoot a beer bottle off the top of his head.
It seems our two friends have a large bounty on their heads. Someone called Sarrano is paying for the hit.
We find out that the unfortunate in the chair is a bounty hunter. We shoot the beer bottle, then blow him out the airlock.
We then have to exit the cargo deck. The door is malfunctioning and we have to pry the door open.
As we do the bounty hunter can be seen throwing a grenade at the ship window in presumably his last act. The window shatters and we have a pseudo quicktime sequence to get the blast door shut.
We then get shown the crouching and jumping controls. We are told that the ships is jumping. A call comes from the bridge telling us to get there quick.
Our hero is called Greyson. On the Bridge a large ship is in front of our ship. It is called the Ulysses. Seems that this is Sarrano's ship and Greyson and a few of the others have a grudge.
The pilot named Ishi is less demented than the rest and calls for reason.
However Greyson has the support of the other drunken war veterans and they attack.
We get control for a little emplaced gun fun, however it's short lived.
The ship is wrecked, Ishi is either dead or knocked out. Greyson pulls himself to the controls and engages the thrusters and tries to warp right through the enemy ship.
amazingly the ship isn't broken entirely and crash lands on the planet they were in orbit of.

The scene shifts to a flashback. We see Greyson standing on the side of a building using gravity boots and on his way to an assassination mission.
We are with all the gang from the ship and are here to kill someone called Bryce Novak.
We find him and look in through his window.
Breaching in we kill him in quicktime lite.
Then we are told that Sarrano wants a bomb placed on a computer. Seems we are working for Sarrano.
Ishi, always the troublemaker it seems finds that Novak was a reporter and was finishing a piece on Sarrano's corruption. It seems the Greyson and his gang thought that they were killing gung runners and mass murderers when it has been civilians all along.
Miffed they call Sarrano for an explanation, he insults them and Greyson tells him that he will kill him. We try and leave and soldiers pour in. There is a kid in the room as well and Ishi is trying to save her. I try and fight but it seems to be a no win fight. I get knocked down and a cut scene shows Ishi about to be shot and Greyson take the bullet for him.

We shift back to the present and Ishi is hurt bad in the crash. We can also see escape pods from the Ulysses landing in the distance.
We have to help the others get Ishi to the med bay. We go down in a lift and into the med bay. We have to get a fuel cell which we don't have to save Ishi. The escape pods have them, so it looks like a little mission is in order.
We progress through the ship and find some local loonies attacking.
We can slide
We fight some more groups of mad maxers.
Then we see an escape pod with one of Sarrano's men.
In cut scene we see him take out some mutants with a whip lash type weapon.
However someone crashes a vehicle into him.
We go to the wreckage and get the leash weapon, which I am asked to use to open the engine and our friend takes the fuel cell.
we are shown how to use the leash to move certain objects in the environment.
Also to pull people into object to kill them.
We get back to the ship and into the med Bay. The doc starts the procedure to save Ishi and we have to stay outside of the sterile field.
As the doc works the savages get inside and attack.
They also start to attack outside as well.
We fight until there is an explosion, In cut scene Greyson wakes to find the savages shooting up his friend. Ishi comes to save Greyson and the other guy grabs an explosive barrel and urges us to shoot. I do and there is an explosion and everything goes black.

Act one Chapter one
Just like the old days
Ishi has had half of his crushed body replaced with robot parts. He is now half robot.
He understandably is pissed with Greyson. He is now more robot that person.
Sarrano is on the planet and stuck on a hotel. Greyson thinks that rescue will be on the way for him.
Ishi needs some fuel to stay alive.
We set out to get some from the natives.
We are shown exploding barrels, we can kick the barrels then shoot them when they are near enemies.
There should be some note made to the nice environment here, a rocky mountainous landscape with jagged claws of rock pointing at the sky. Desert sand and bones of large animals making bridges.
I come to gate and before it is a machine. The machine is dropped from the ship by Sarrano for his troops and is a gated ammo and upgrade cache. We can shop using skill points for new upgrades and weapons.
We are shown about skill points, which the leash gives by grading the style of your kills.
The gate opens and savages attack.
We come to a camp and fight all the savages here.
Then down in a lift into a refinery

Act one Chapter 2
Last train from explosion town
We go down into the refinery, Greyson wonders if this is a pirate mining operation, however Ishi thinks that it is using to much confederation tech and is too organized to be anything other than confederation in origin. Maybe it has been taken over by the savages?
We come to a large room full of gyro copters, Ishi tell us to destroy them. As we do savages attack.
A gyrocopter driven by a savage attacks. We have to leash the pilot and play a little mini game of click the button at the right time, like a golf game to pull him out.
We progress through shanty buildings fighting the savages.
I find a place where I can kick barriers that the savages are using for cover and kill them.
We fight in a room and suddenly the building collapses and we fall down into the floor below.
I come to the power source and Ishi grabs hold and charges up in a spectacularly painful looking fashion.
The impromptu recharge has overloaded the system and we have to leave fast before the place explodes.
A train seems the best bet so we head for it.
As we get there a larger chaingun toting enemy appears.
He is stunned by a charge shot from the gun and then we can hit his unarmored areas to kill him.
We then have some chaingunning from the train as savages swarm it.
In cut scene Ishi gets the train moving, however a savage sets a grindwheel in motion. It is a huge serated cog type device It rolls after the train.
This is an emplaced gun ride on the train. Jeeps, a barge and gyrocopters give chase. Then a dropship type copter which fires ground burrowing torpedoes.
We then have to hit huge tanks by the side of the track to stop the grindwheel from hitting us.
A another train attacks and while I blow it up, it is still pushing us.
The brakes are out and the train crashes.

Act one Chapter 3
Whatever it is, it's pissed.
We are now in more green and water filled terrain, though still mountainous.
Gyrocopters and savages attack. One of the gyrocopters is damaged and lands. Maybe we can use it. We have to head through a cave to get to it though.
Inside the cave we encounter some eggs. To progress we have to blow up the eggs. As we do the mother creature stirs. We have to run and a timer appears in the top middle of the screen.
I run out to the gyroppcoter and we both get on in cut scene.
The mother creature bursts it's way out of the mountain to chase us, though we can't see it for all the dust kicked up. he train is still hanging above us and we shoot the fuel tank to bring it down on the monster.
The gyrocopter is too broken to fly much further and crashes.
A new gun was taken from the savages here, a screamer.

Act 2 Chapter 1
Damsel in distress
We are closing in on the beacon, the final echo trooper is nearby.
I find a savage that can't be leashed.
We proceed into a new area which is a villa type area, in the distance a huge city can be seen.
I shoot up a bunch of fireflies that I find here.
I also find a newsbot, these appear to be the collectibles.
We fight some savages in a square then find a club, which we enter.
We fight a boss in the disco then out the other side.
Now through some dock like areas.
I now have to contend with exploding enemies.
A dropship brings in a load of enemies and then suicide bombers come in waves.
Another newsbot here.
A new gun here called the flailgun. This gun fires two chain linked grenades that wrap around the enemy.
I find the escape pod and it is empty.
We don't have to go far before we find the soldier in combat with the savages.
She tells us to get lost and not to follow her. Which I am sure won't stop us.
We fight through some more areas then we see her take out a bridge to prevent us following her. We have to take a detour through an attraction called the monster dome.

Act 2 Chapter 2
Worst family fun vacation ever.
There are a bunch of large robot monsters in here and one of them is missing.
It looks like you get to drive the monsters around and destroy a miniature city.
We enter the small city and have to fight the savages through the streets.
Then the monster turns up. We hide under the city in service tunnels.
We progress through the service areas avoiding the monster which seems to be trying to get to us.
I get dead ended by the monster and we see who is controlling it, one of the savages, killing him stops the monster moving and gives us it's controller.
We now get to semi drive the beast. We can aim to a point where we want it to shoot and we have a shooting gallery of savages and three bosses to take care of.
We then get to make the beast knock a bus into a canal to make a path for it.
Then another shooting gallery with gyrocopters and jeeps.
We now get attacked by more gyrocopters in the same area and some savages.
The beast is used to break through another wall before finally breaking down.
Seems that the savages here were guarding a hole, it's possible they were guarding against what comes out of the hole. So of course we are going down the hole.

Act 3 Chapter 1
One sniper means a dozen.
We go down the hole and have to kick an obstacle aside, it brings the place down around us and we have another quick run sequence to escape the collapsing mine. We come out into more green and waterfall filled lands, the city is closer now.
I find that I have got a new weapon from somewhere called a boneduster.
We use a lift and go up the side of the dam.
We are seeing signs that suggest this is Kreeps turf.
These are even more crazy cannibal mutilating type chaps.
They avoid being kicked and can't be leashed.
Now we encounter snipers. I get the sniper rifle and it is a guided bullet type sniper rifle.
I pass through a boat house and come out onto some docks.
More snipers to deal with.
The leash can be used as a bomb type mechanism, you hold the left bumper and it thumps the ground raising all the nearby enemies into the air.
We pass through the marina and into a hotel type environment.
There are fireflies in the hotel area overlooking the damn view.
In the kitchen the freakier freaks are cooking the less freaky freaks.

Act 3 Chapter 2
A dam fine mess.
We come to a room with an open roof and balcony and we are ambushed.
We cross a bridge and there are fireflies here.
Now we come to a blast furnace type area.
Here we fight freaks in a large fight box filled with roaring flames.
When it's done a cut scene shows Trishka kicking the snot, well the snot and the blood out of a freak before shooting it in the head.
Greyson tries to chat, however she knows who we are. She is also disillusioned with Saranno and a truce is called. Ishi is getting all robot overlord destroy all humans again.
Trishka tells us that the skulls and the Kreeps are at war.
Which is basically a prelude to seeing a huge fight between the two which we can get in the middle of.
We fight along the top of the dam, then into it's inner workings. We pull a piece off one of the giant wheels to make a path. However this may have been a bad move as the damn starts to break down explosively.
The large wheels break free and fall bringing the dam down, we end up in a makeshift raft floating down with gyrocopters after us.
A huge tidal wave hits the boat and everything goes black.

Act 4 chapter 1
The only way through.
we are now in the city proper. A soldier with a jump ships nearby, or at least was recently. Trishka wants to find him. The city is called the forbidden zone.
Trishka tells them to be quiet, the road is blocked by a chasm and we have to kick over a sign to make a bridge, when we do it blows up a chain of cars and brings half a building down. So much for being quiet.
New here are glowing yellow balls called nom parasites. They grab onto your head and try and eat you I presume.
You can kick them at enemies, you also have to be careful not to hit your allies as they get immobilized by the nom parasites.
Now we find the creator of the parasites, large man eating plants.
We use a zip line here.
After a fight with some snipers a cut scene shows the capsule we are looking for in the distance.
Gyrocopters attack in the cut scene and while Greyson and Ishi are shooting them Trishka makes a break for it. Ishi shoots the ladder she is climbing and nearly beats her to death.
Greyson is starting to worry about Ishi, also feel guilty.
We are tasked with working out how to pass a road block, when I can't Trishka shoots a large wrecking ball of a sign down and it ploughs into the road block opening the way.
There is a news bot behind the dropkit after the wrecking ball.
Also a bottle of juice in a tent.
Now we find a new boss which shoots exploding balls.
same as before, stun him then grapple his helmet or butt.
We get his gun which is called a bouncer.

Act 4 Chapter 2
Maneaters prefer tight spots.
We move into a sewer type area. Some of the nom plants are here and shooting them releases clouds of rage gas.
Ishi climbs through a tunnel to open a gate, this puts him ahead of us up the stairs. When we start to climb them he shouts for help. A huge tentacle monster has erupted from the ground and it eats Ishi right in front of us, powerless to prevent it.
We progress down a long sloping terraced garden area. It's full of man eating plants and prickly bushes.
A helicopter comes to attack us.
The plants bring it down with their tentacles and a boss gets out to fight us.
We then progress up the terrace towards a large greenhouse type building.
Just before the boss plant there are some fireflies, there have also been a few obvious news bots on the terrace.
Inside the green house we meet the boss plant. It's a bulbous body with a long neck and a head full of teeth. It tries to bite us, which rapidly pressing B solves.
We basically have to circle around it and shoot the red bits as they are presented. A traditional boss battle, yet a fun one as I did it first time with no frustration and it was just pure fun.

Act 4 Chapter 3
Itchin to crumble.
We jump down the plant hole and find Ishi alive.
Trishka tells us that Sarrano was sent here to clear out the skulls and the Kreeps. The soldiers were given the skillshot system in some sort of twisted natural selection type experiment. Those that did well were able to resupply while the rubbish ones ran low on ammo and died.
Some electroflies here.
Now we are into the actual demo that was given away on xbox live.
Getting stuck on objects here, feet tangled in scenery isn't a good look.
A nice scene sees you bring an old lift down on top of about five enemies at once.
News bot just after the lift scene.
We get to fight through some open areas with large drops, lots of kicking the bad guys over the edge.
Mini boss here.
Now the building starts to really crumble and we have to run for it until we reach an elevator. In the elevator it is moving too slow to escape the collapse. Ishi tells us to shoot some canisters we can see and in cut scene we see the elevator propelled out of the building like a rocket on a plume of smoke.

Act 5 Chapter 1
Crash Resistant.
We survive the crash unscathed as usual.
Now we are heading for a monorail.
I use an elevator and a helicopter can be seen landing nearby.
We go over to this area and clear out loads of enemies. Then we have to get the monorail working. This is really just a horde mode level.
Boss to finish and it's onto the monorail.
On the monorail ride Trishka is asked by Greyson why final echo could not control the skulls and kreeps as is usual in FPS games he is wiping out their entire population single handed. Well Ishi and Triska are there and shooting but they don't seem to kill much.
Triska tells us that we haven't seen the worst yet. There are totally mutated creatures called burnouts to deal with. Oh look, speak of the devil, here is one now.
The monorail is made to crash by the burnouts.

Act 5 Chapter 2
We get hemmed into an area with loads of incoming burnouts, they are men shaped blobs with glowing orbs. Shooting the orbs is advised, however sliding into them knocked them off their feet and nearby prickly plants and bombs make quick work of them.
There are fireflies behind a kick barrier just after the burnouts and a news bot as well.
Now we go into a smaller room and are mobbed by burnouts.
This is a trap and it's a good one.
Sudden difficulty spike though.
There is some juice here to drink.
Skulls attack in a helicopter and blow open the wall. Now there are lots more burnouts. We are told there are too many and to just keep moving.
Though there aren't and I take them out, the skulls chopper goes down and it makes a nice death trap to kick the burnouts into.
Now a boss burnout. Which needs shot a lot then kicked into the blades to take it down.
We get into a lift.

Act 5 Chapter 3
I see we're all a bit upset.
We see another survivor in the distance fighting. We are making for his position.
We fight some more kreeps this time for variety and then a cut scene.
Trishka falls down a hole and is knocked out. Ishi is in robot mode and wants to leave her. Greyson wants to save her. Ishi tells Greyson that they need Sarrano alive and not to kill him or he will have Ishi to deal with. Greyson goes down to Trishka and argues with him about all this being about his issues with Sarrano. Of course her world view of Greyson comes from Sarrano so she is biased. Greyson tells her some home truths about why he was so angry with Sarrano and we find that the reporter we killed was her father, the girl in his office was possibly Trishka. She is angered, Greyson does not tell her that it was him who killed her father.
Now we are in the bowels of this hotel, in a sewage type area. It turns out to be a burnout nest, or feeding ground. Lots of bits of body lying around. The game tries for some Dead Space style scares here.
I come to a cauldron of glowing green stuff.
A large boss burnout appears however it falls in the cauldron, it might be dead, but I think we are going to be seeing it again soon.
We crawl through some rubble and out into the hotel type area again.
A news bot here.
We fight some more skulls.
I come out into an open area and fight some burnouts and leash a bus into a gap in the street to progress.
There is something wrecking the skyscrapers around here. Looks like the thing we met in the cavern way back on the second level or so is still looking for us.
The burnouts attack again and we progress down the street. The creature appears at last and is a huge burnout boss, Trishka calls it a Hekaton.
In cut scene we see Greyson and Trishka run from the huge monster into a lift.
We come out onto a rooftop and find Ishi fighting skulls. A helicopter is nearby and Trishka flies while we use the emplaced gun.
We shoot at skulls and protect Ishi, also the Hekaton which has a point on the back of it's head that is vulnerable. The ship flies around and eventually a cut scene starts.
Ishi saves Sarrano who is running out of ammo. The escape pod is set to self destruct and the monster eats it and blows it's head up.
Sarrano and the rest of the gang are reunited. Ishi won't let anyone kill him.
Trishka asks about her father. Sarrano tells them that a bomb which will kill everything on the planet that is living is set to go off in two hours. The problem is that the dropship is coming in three.
I need to go to the wreck of the Ulysses and deactivate the bomb.
Sarrano pushes Trishka off the building, claiming to have done Greyson a favour.
I don't think we have seen the last of her. Though I am guessing that the game can only handle two a.i. players so we needed her out of the way.

Act 6 Chapter 1
Daddy'll get you out.
Saranno tells us about tunnels that will take us under the city and away quickly and safely.
A large electrical storm has started in the city.
Basically any window or hole in the ceiling lets the storm in and gives you plenty of opportunity for electrocuting enemies.
We fight a lot of enemies here in a more fight box style of gameplay.
Sarrano tells us that the city was staffed with convicts.

Act 6 Chapter 2
Bad trouble a knockin'
We take a lift down to the prison level where there were cells for 28,000 inmates.
Seems that they also stored the toxic waste here as well.
We take a run through some toxic waste after being dumped in it by a rickety platform.
Then some burnouts appear for a fight.
Some good fun here with lots of burnouts and lots of exploding stuff to hurl them into.
We see Sarrano get knocked off a platform and we have to go and save him.
Greyson and Ishi have a little heart to heart and Ishi tells him that he doesn't blame Greyson and that he followed him of his own free will. The quest to kill Saranno was one of atonement not revenge for all of them.
We have some snipers to take out.
We go down into a large canal type area filled with radioactive waste. Sarrano tells us that the population here is probably mostly tourists who missed the evacuation ships.
We see some burnouts coming towards us, however they are actually running form scorpion type enemies.
We have a scene where the scorpions try and break a lift that we are going up in for some unknown reason, they don't attack us just the lift cogs.
We have to shoot as many of them as we can to keep the lift going up.
At the top we have too run for it before a door closes on us.
I come out onto the surface and we are at the wreck of the Ulysses.
We use a zip line to get there fast.

Act 6 Chapter 3
Ponderin' them bodies.
I get caught in the ground here by Ishi and can't escape, I have to restart the checkpoint.
We have to make our way through the building that the Ulysses is crashed on top of.
There are lots of the crew of the Ulysses lying around dead. The burnouts have been eating them.
I get into the Ulysses.
We progress through the ship with Greyson and Sarrano arguing. Sarrano trying to make him feel guilty about all the people dead on the ship and Greyson ragging Sarranno about taking down his prize battleship with a much smaller ship.
I come to some flammable fumes.
We have to fight some burnouts using only kicks and leash.
There are some handy giant fans to use.
Now we come to a large hexagonal multi story area. There is a control in the centre that turns off low barriers which have glowing pink energy on top. We have to turn of the field and jump quickly over. The enemies can be hurled into the pink field for fun.
We come to a corridor with a giant burnout, we have to push it back towards an electrical field to kill it.
We come to the bomb, Sarrano tells us that he has to turn a key when we enter the deactivation code on the bomb. I sense a trap here. Of course it's fairly obvious and I don't feel that I am clever by saying that.
Of course Saranno has betrayed us and we have now just armed the bomb and he gets away leaving us trapped in the room with the bomb.
I run around frantically trying to find a way out and climb through some ducts. They just lead to huge drops or back to the bomb. Trishka appears to save the day.

Act 7 Chapter 1
That thing is leaving without us.
We are now heading for the spaceport where Sarrano is getting picked up.
Here we split up from Ishi and Trishka and they take a lower road and we cover them from above, while also fighting people on our level.
We then come to a lobby type area with a few levels, this is a survival room, which soon fills with loads of bosses and enemies.
Now we have a two minute timer to get to the ship before Sarrano leaves without us.
Which is a headlong dash through loads of skulls. We have to get to the dropship, a vehicle explodes and Greyson is knocked down. A cut scene shows Sarrano being escorted onto the dropship.
We have to run to it in a very tight time limit and leash the ramp back down.

Act 7 Chapter 2
I don't hold you accountable.
We are now on the escaping dropship, which is filled with heavily armored troops.
Again we kill lots of soldiers by ejecting the cargo hold that is filled with them.
Sarrano again tries to make us feel guilty about killing all these people just to get to him.
We get to a door that is locked to us. Trishka goes through a vent. Ishi thinks she isn't coming back and has gone on to kill Sarrano on her own.
He opens the door by electrocuting himself again.
We rampage through the ship, these enemies take a lot more pounding but go down just as well as the freaks.
We get to a door that needs hacked. Ishi hacks it while we hold off waves of soldiers.
Inside we get a cut scene.
Trishka is holding a gun to Sarrano's head. She asks if he killed her father, he tells her that he ordered it and Greyson did the deed.
Sarrano uses a leash to hack into the robot part of Ishi and control him. Ishi beats up Trishka and Grey and we have to press B repeatedly to stop ourselves from dying in Ishi's chokehold.
Ishi resists the control and Sarrano shoots him. Sarrano throws Grey around with the leash and is about to shoot him when Ishi dives in front of the shot.
we have some quicktime to do to finally beat up Sarrano and apparently kill him.
Some soldiers appear and we see a not quite dead Sarrano eject us from the ship.
Back on the planet we are left fighting some more soldiers that got ejected with us.
Trishka forgives Grey for what he did.
We find ourselves back at the Ulysses just in time for the DNA bomb that is going to wipe out all life on the planet to go off.
We have to run through the soldiers to get to the escape pods on the ship before the bomb goes off. Some technobabble excuses why we didn't just do this the last time.
The final cut scene shows the escape pod leaving the atmosphere as the dna bomb goes off killing everything on the planet.
In the escape pod Greyson is guilty about all the friends he lost. Trishka asks what now and it looks like there is still Sarrano to go after. Bulletstorm 2 anyone?

10 hours approximately.
290 Achievement points for one normal playthrough.

Dragon Age : Origins Notes

2011-03-16T14:55:00.001-07:00

Mages in the distant past tried to do something fairly dodgy and were turned into the Darkspawn.
They came back to the planet and started taking over. Grey wardens fought them and prevailed.
Four centuries later there has been peace. However the darkspawn is stil around biding it's time.
There are few Wardens left and they are not heeded very well. We see one fighting two darkspawn and he knows that they are getting ready to attack again.

Now character creation. Male or female. Dwarf, elf or human. Warrior, mage or rogue.
You can play with your characters appearance in many ways.
Difficulty level is next, I choose normal.

Tutorial mission
I am introduced to our family the Couslands. Our brother is preparing for a fight with the darkspawn that is rising in the south.
Our father talks about the impending battle. My character walks in, we get to speak to them.
A selection of choices is given in this idle chit chat.
A man called Howe is visiting. He has his soldiers with him. They seem dodgy.
Our father leaves us in charge when they go out to war.
The grey warden, Duncan is brought in to chat. He is interested in us as a recruit.
Conversation choices are the usual mix of middle of the road, nice or argumentative.

We are now in control of our character.

Left stick to move, right for camera.
A is interact.
Back brings up a map.

I walk out the door and find a person called Ser Gilmore
He tells us that our Mubari war hound is in the kitchen. We have to go and control it.
On the way our mother interrupts and seems to be trying to marry us off.
I manage to get to the kitchen.

The cook is angry, The dog is trying to tell us something.
There are giant rats in the larder.
I find it hysterical that after the fight the two characters are spattered with blood.
Fighting is a matter of hitting X so far. I am sure it will get more comlicated.
The cook starts of indignant still, then end up giving the dog a treat.

I am back to looking for our brother to tell him to send the army out.
I manage to find the map and get to him.

Fergus is saying goodbye to his wife and son, of course he is going to die soon, he has redshirt painted all over him.
Mom and pop turn up for a family scene.

That seems to be an end to this section.

Mission 1
A cut scene starts.
It's night time. The dog wakes us up barking.
Howe's soldiers are attacking in the absence of the castle troops.
I have to fight a few of them.
Mother arrives Father is missing.
She joins us as we go looking for him.
Dead bodies can be looted.
There is a complex inventory system. Also in fighting skills can be mapped to the xyab buttons.
At the moment I have a shield bash. Once these are used they have a cooldown period.
Fergus's wife and son have been killed.
When you level up you can spend points on attributes.
The castle is overrun, Mother suggests that we leave and fight another day.
We progress through the castle fighting. A big fight in the throne room.
Here we meet mages for the first time.
Archers also stand apart from the fight and fire into the melee.
Father went to the kitchens.
I fight my way there and find Father bleeding to death.
He is mortally wounded. The grey warden arrives and suggests that they need to leave.
Duncan wants to take us to be a grey warden, that way revenge will come.
Mother stays with father. Duncan and Elissa leave.

Mission 2
We meet a king, who is unaware of Howes treachery.
He pledges to help.
The king seems to think they are winning, he is even disappointed that there isn't any arch demons.
We have a joining ritual to perform.
We are left to explore a little first.
The stat screens are daunting in their complexity at first.
I enter Ostagar and explore.
There are mages practicing that can't be interrupted.
I meet Wynne a mage, she tells us of the fade, which is a realm where spirts dwell. There is a dark city there which is the source of the darkspawn.
I find Duncan and need to find someone called Alastair.
One of the wounded soldiers is despondent after a fight with the darkspawn.
I find a deserter in a cage, he needs fed, I have to ask his guard for food for him. He won't give me any.
The quartermaster can supply us with weapons.
I eventually find Alastair, he is a new Grey warden too, I go back to Duncan with him.
we meet Daveth and Sejury. The joining is a test of skill.
We have to go out into the woods and get a vial of darkspawn blood.
We have also to find scrolls left in an abandoned outpost.

Mission 3
I go out into the Kocari wilds.
I fight some wolves.
I find some soldiers who have been attacked.
I save one and Jury get scared because a whole bunch of soldier got killed, what chance do four recruits stand.
Alastair tells us that Grey wardens can sense darkspawn.
I find a camp filled with them it's a hard fight and once over only one of my team is left standing. The rest get back up but they have injury flags.
I find the archive, a woman appear who is named Morrigan. After much banter she tells us that her mother had the scrolls we seek. She takes us to her, and she gives us the scrolls.
She also fast travels us back to camp.
The joining ritual is explained, Alastair takes us to the old temple.
We have to drink the darkspawn blood and master the taint.
Daveth drinks it and dies. Jory does not want to do it and Duncan kills him.
I then take it and survive. I see a vision of a large dragon.
We have to meet the king next.
I give a flower I found in the wilds to the kennel master to cure the dogs.
I can now buy the meal from the guard to give to the deserter.
I find the king.
The king wants to go on the frontline, his advisor does not want him.
The Orlesians it seems are an old enemy, The king wants to unite with them against the darkspawn, the advisor is a staunch traditionalist.
The king wants us to light a beacon during the battle.
Logain the advisor seems dodgy, or is it the foolhardy king that is going to be the problem.

Mission 4
We have to go to the tower next.
A cut scene shows the army awaiting the Darkspawn attack.
Duncan and the king are confident.
The darkspawn appear in large numbers, snarling and orc like. Giants and dwarves amongst them.
Archers and hounds are set loose.
Then the battle is joined.
We start at a bridge we crossed entering the city and have to cross it under fire.
When we get across we are told that the tower has been taken, the darkspawn came up through the sewers.
I get into the fight, here i experiment a little more with controlling other characters, I have a mage and ranged fighting is fun.
There are traps here, which explode or produce clouds of gas that slow your character.
After around three floors of tower we come to the top and find our first boss battle.
A large Orge appears and it is a close fight.
A cut scene shows Logain retreating on the signal rather than attacking. We see the king slaughtered by and Ogre which Duncan then kills single handed. He can't win though huge numbers of Darkspawn overwhelm the army and kill them all. We see our gang being attacked and our character being shot with an arrow and falling.
She wakes in a bed naked and Morrigan is there.
Morrigan tells her that her mother saved them. She fills them in on what happened at the castle.

Mission 5
I meet with Alastair and Morrigan's mother who reveals her name as Flemeth.
The dicussion her centres on what to do next. Loghain has obviously betrayed the king for his own ends. Alastair wants to go to the Arl of Redcliffe who was the kings uncle. He thinks that he will bring Loghain to justice.
Flemeth suggests that the Grey wardens have treaties with the elves, dwarves and mages which bind them to aid in times of trouble. Flemeth suggest that an army be raised to fight the Darkspawn.
Morrigan is tasked with joining the grey wardens in their quest.
I now leave Flemeth's hut and come to a world map.
Here we can choose to go to certain places. Though only one of the icons is available.

A cut scene shows Loghain talking to a crowd. Loghain has declared himself regent for the new queen.
A crowd member challenges him on his withdrawal and policies. The queen defends him.
We come to a bridge on which thieves have set up an ambush. I kill them. They inform us that grey wardens are traitors and there is a bounty on our heads.
We have a discussion amongst the party, seems we need to visit the elves, dwarves, mages and human's to seek their help.
I am now in a village. There are arguments amongst villager over food and lots of lost children and begging people stripped of their wordly goods by the flight from the Darkspawn.
I find man called Sten in a cage who it seems will join us if we get him free.
I find a man called Donal who tells us that the Arl of redcliffe is ill. It seems to be a magical poision that is affecting him.Possibly Loghain is to blame.
An urn of sacred ashes might be able to cure him.
I meet the priestess in charge here, she won't give up the Qunari until I exhaust all option other than threatening to kill her. what the hell.
She gives us the key.
I release Sten and he joins us.
I can only have four in my party. I get rid of the dog.
On leaving the village I find some dwarves being attacked by darkspawn.
After leaving a cut scene shows a dragon and loads of darkspawn. It is a dream and Alatair talks to us after we wake. Seems that the dragon is the archdemon.

Mission 6
I find myself in the county in a small camp.Seems that this is a base hub, it has the two dwarves in it as a shop. Though there gear is expensive.
Naughty Naughty, I find a man offering to send me on a quest to an old warden's keep, after a bit of chat about it I find that it's dlc and get sent to the buy page when I accept the task. Sure have DLC, but only mention it when people have bought it. it's a bit jarring to be given an in game advert for something, especially early in the game.
I take myself out of the camp and have to select my party. There are a lot of options here.
I decide to go to redcliffe to get the human contingent to help.
On the way I am ambushed and have to fight some darkspawn.
Alastair reveals that he is the bastard son of the king. The arl of Redcliffe took him in, until his wife heard rumours that he was her husbands bastard. Alastair thinks the arl will help him now because of this.
I enter Redcliffe, seems that monsters are coming from the castle at night to attack the villagers. We are taken to a leader to learn more.
We meet Teegan, who was the man we saw disagreeing with Loghain.
It seems zombies are attacking from the castle. I agree to help defend the village.
Murdoc is the mayor and we have to go see him to aid the village.
The blacksmith is despondent and depressed and won't help. We have to get him to help.
I have to break his door down and he has been drinking.
In conversation with him we learn that the arlessa is involved with black magic and may be responsible.
The smith's daughter is in the castle and this is why he is so despondent.
I promise to save her and he will do the work.
We have to speak with Ser Perth as well. He is one of the knights sent looking for the urn which may save the arl. I have an argument with the priestess who won't lie to the troops and tell them that the maker is protecting them.
I then trigger the fight with the undead. Night falls and they attack.
A horde of undead come from the castle and fight. Then we have to run back into the village and defend against a flanking attack.
Once done we see the villagers celebrate.

Mission 7
Teagan tells us of a secret passage into the castle which we can use to investigate.
Isolde the Arless appears, she wants Teagan to return to the castle with her.
There is an evil in the castle, a mage released it.
Seems Loghain hired him to posion the Arl.
Isolde and Teagan will return, he wants us to use the secret passage, while he distracts the evil.
Inside the passageway we find some corpses, then the mage in prison. He tells us that he was hired to poison the arl, but has nothing to do with the evil demon.
Isolde hired the mage because he was a disgraced mage, outside circle or apostate.
Just like Morrigan. He thinks that the son has opened the veil to the fade and let the demons in.
I let him out.
Inside the castle there is more fighting with the undead and new enemy, the ghostly lesser shades.
I find the smith's daughter Valena, she goes back to her father.
After some more corridors we come out into the courtyard and find a new enemy, a revenant.
which is killing me dead with ease, hmmmm. I manage it without any real change in tactics, seems luck is a big factor along witht the ai of your enemies and allies.
I enter the main hall and find that Connor the son is possessed by something.
After some chit chat we fight with the posessed guards and Teagan.
Then have a chat with Teagan, the mage and Isolde about who is to blame for all this.
The mage may be able to break the demon's connection.
However, he will steal someones life energy to send another mage into the fade to kill the demon. The merits and demerits are discussed.
There is a way to avoid death, if more mages are sought. I take the option.
Jowan and Teagan will stay and keep the demon at bay.

I go back to camp and organise weapons and armour.
On the way to places in fast travel it seems that ambushes are regular.

Mission 8
I go to the mages tower, a guard gives us grief before taking us across the lake to the tower.
I find the leader of the templars in the tower and it seems that things have gone wrong here as well.
The tower is also brimming with creatures escaped from the fade.
We have some chit chat, the templar agrees that if we clear out the tower he will join us against the darkspawn, of course he does not expect us to live.
Inside I find a mage called Wynne, we met her earlier.
We join with her to go into the tower.
After a fight on the first floor we get to the second and find Owain, he tells us that blood mages are involved and someone named Niall is setting out to fight them.
I find a mage and fight them, once defeated we chat. Seems the mages involved wanted rebellion against the templars and the Chantry.
Aldred is their leader and he has gone mad.
I find a love demon who has a man in it's thrall. It's a hard fight but I kill it.
We are given the opportunity to just walk away here, as it seems like the man is getting everything he desires. Of course the demon will be free to enslave others if we do.
I come to the boss of the baddies here, it's an abomination of flesh, crudely shaped into a man.

Mission 9
It uses magic to get into our minds and tries to make us sleep. I find myself in my dreams.
I find myself with duncan and some other grey wardens in a warden castle.
Duncan tries to make me think that the war is over.
I obviously know not to trust him.
I fight him and the other wardens.
A portal takes us to another place. Are we in the fade?
I find Niall who was also fighting the demon. Seems he is caught in the fade as well.
We have to break through the fade world to get to the demon and fight it for real.
I find a mouse who grants me the ability to shapeshift into a mouse.
I can then enter small mouse doors here in this strange landscpae.
I enter the burning tower and after a few fights find a templar who gives me the power to shapeshift into a fire immune form.
I go through a portal to a place named the mages asunder.
I find mages attacking here, at one point a bunch of them attack each other rather than me.
Servants also attack, I can pass through fires using the fire shape and also fight with fire.
Lots of loading screens in this game.
There are places here where instat death can easily occur, gangs of mages can hit you with spells that see it impossible to even stand up again and all you can do is watch as your health plummets to zero.
I find a mage under attack by mages and stone golems. Once he is saved he give me his pwoers.
He has the ability to turn into a stone golem, which gives me some good strentgh and health.
I move through the mages area some more and fight more golems and mages as a golem and get some nice loot and bonus stats. Then onto the Templars nightmare.
Now the Darkspawn invasion. I move through more corridors and find a templar attacked by darkspawn and save him to get his power. This is spirit form which is good with magic and can see hidden things in the fade.
I come to a large boss named something the crusher, it's is a big horned demon, running in circles and waiting until your golem powers charge is enough to kill it easily.
They increasingly seem to be taking the piss with the difficulty here.
I find a door in templars nightmare that can only be seen with the spirt form.
This leads to the boss battle with one of the love demons.
I go back to the burning tower, since I have the ability to enter the blocked doors I can now go and find the boss there.
I find the demon Rhagos in the burning temple.
Back to the mages Asunsder to find it's demon.
I do and that is all four guardian demons destroyed.
I can now access the three nightmares that are surrounding the circle of islands on the map.
These are the nightmares of our companions. Looks like we will get them back to help at last if we can release them from their nightmares.
I find Morrigan arguing with her mother. After killing the mother Morrigan vanishes.
Then Sten and Wynne.
Now we can reach the inner sanctum of the demon and have a boss battle with it.
It's a hard fight but I manage it. It takes four forms and each one has a health bar.

In cut scene Niall appears. He tells us to take the litany of Adralla from his body. Niall thinks the demon has been feeding on him for too long and he will die if he wakes.
He does and we find ourselves back in the mage tower.
We fight more of the demons and then find a templar called Cullen in a cage. He is being tortured it seems. The other mages that are left are being tortured as well.
The templar wants us to kill everyone of the remaining mages.
In the tower Uldred is torturing the mages until the turn in monsters in his service.
I have a fight with Uldred who turns into a large demon. Using the Litany seems to prevent his spawning extra enemies.
I kill Uldred and speak to Irving who goes to speak with the templars to tell him that the crisis has been averted.
Gregoir is happy to see Irving and stands the templars down from nuking the tower.
Irving pledges to aid us against the darkspawn.
Wynne joins our party.
I ask for help at redcliffe with the connor possesion.

I go back to Redcliffe to see if the child has been freed from posssesion.

a cut scene is triggered and we see Loghain being given bad news. Seems some people aren't buying his story and are going to stand against him. He is also told by Howe that there is still Grey wardens left. He sends an assassin after us.

Mission 10
Back at redcliffe castle we find Irving and his gang in the throne room.
We get to choose who goes into the fade to kill the demon.
In the fade the landscape is familiar, there are ghostly people wandering about who do us no Harm. I find arl eamann. He is lost in the fade as well.
I find the boy and he turns into the demon and after a little fight it flees.
It makes us run around for a while before seeing that we aren't going to give up.
We then get a boss battle with the demon.
I kill her on the second attempt but it is close.
We see the castle being tided and bodies being sent out on burning boats.
Teagan and Isolde chat, Connor is fine and remembers nothing. Teagan asks what is to be done with Jowan, the mage who poisoned Eamon. I leave it up to him.
We have to find the urn to revive Eamon.

On the way to places seems to be the excuse needed for cut scenes showing exposition.
I see Loghain, Howe and his daughter chatting. The daughter seems to be realising that Loghain is screwing things up. It appears that we are being asked to feel sorry for him, maybe even suggesting that the king got what he deserved for being an airhead. However Loghain is trying in his own way to be in charge and the civil war coupled with the darkspawn seems to be making double trouble which is maybe more than he can chew.

On the way to the next map location the assasin Zevran appears with an ambush and I manage to kill him.
We get to chat, seems he is only loyal to whoever is paying him. Since he has failed his masters the Antivan Crows will kill him anyway. So he may as well tag along with us.
I accept, though I will probably regret it later.

I find the dalish Elves and get taken to their camp by a rather hostile guard named Mithra.
Zaphrien is the leader, he tells us that the elves can't help and shows us why.
Werewolves have been causing them big trouble.
Looks like we have some werewolves to kill. A great wolf called witherfang is the source of the curse. If witherfang is killed and his heart brought back to Zaphrien he may be able to undo the curse.
I explore the elf camp and find that the elves hold deep seated grudges towards humanity. Seems that humans once enslaved the elves. The chantry and the templars freed them and since then the elves have been at war with humans and lost. Over the the need to worship the Maker.
There is an injured animal that seems to be a side quest. along with an elf who might join us later.

Mission 11
I enter the brecilian forest and it's only a few paces in when we are attacked by wolves and werewolves. Seems very fable like here.
I come across a bunch of werewolves who want a chat. They are angry sounding and really hate the elves. They seem to be ambivalent towards our gang and give us the chance to go. When I continue to try and chat they seem to be hard of thinking and decide to just attack anyway. After a few second beating them up they retreat telling us that the forest will make us pay.
I find some more werewolves to fight then some ent like trees attack.
One of the trees is willing to chat an elder oak. It apologises for it's younger more aggressive kin.
his elder oak wants it's acorn back, which was stolen.
I find an empty camp, which is a trap and a shade attacks.
Then I move into another area of the forest. There is a mist blocking a path. entering it makes you come back out the way you came in.
I find a mad old hermit who stole the oaks acorn. With some chat I get it back in return for a silver ring. He won't tell us how to get past the mist though.
I try and take the gear, but he has very powerful magic. I leave him to it after getting the acorn. I find a dying werewolf. It is one of the elves sent here to find Witherfang. It asks me to tell her husband what happened and want us to kill it. I refuse and it attacks forcing our hand.
I take the acorn back to the oak and it gives us one of it's branches. This will allow us to pass through the barrier.
Inside the barrier I find the werewolves from earlier, they profess that witherfang keeps them safe here and that they are the ones who are being preyed upon. However, they attack us anyway when I make every indication of just wanting to chat about the problem peacfully.
As before during the fight when I am getting the upper hand a cut scene starts. I see a white wolf appear and knock over one of the party and allow the werewolves to flee.
Another set of wolves appear and flee, saying something about going to protect the lady.
I find some ruins and enter.
Inside are werewolves and giant spiders to fight. The werewolves have barricaded a door.
I come to a large church like area and have to fight a dragon, it isn't that hard of a fight though.
There are dead knights and dwarves lying around.
I find a small ghost boy, he is looking for his mother, he does not seem to be hearing us.
Skeletons attack here on mass and it's a hard fight, which is at odds with the ease so far.
I move on through this long and now hard dungeon. Lots of fight, too much loot and eventually a pool of water which I presume we swim under into the werewolf lair.
This is more corridors filled with werewolves.
I come to swiftrunner and he finally seems ready to talk, since we are at the door of his secret then he has no choice. We are taken to meet the lady of the forest, who is a naked half woman half tree. She tells us that it was Zathrian, the elf leader who made the curse of the werewolves. Long ago humans and elves lived in the forest. However, the humans raped his daughter and he took revenge on them by creating Witherfang. The plan worked and the werewolf curse eventually drove the humans from the forest.
The werewolves found the lady and she helped them. They went to Zathrian in the present to ask for his help. However he refused and they only attacked to spread the curse to the elves to force Zathrian to undo his magic.
The lady wants us to bring Zathrian to her, to talk. I agree that this should happen.
I leave the ruin by a new door, and find Zathrian waiting. He is still angry, he tells us that Witherfang and the lady are one and the same.
He agrees to go down into the lair with us and talk.
In the lair the lady reveals that Zathrian needs the curse too, it is tied in to his immortality. He won't end the curse, the wolves are getting restless and the lady has nothing to add. It is down to us, a choice. Killing Zathrian seems to have no point, he is stubborn, however his pain is just. The wolves are talking, but they are still very savage. The lady offers no plan. I can't really choose. I have to though, so I go against Zathrian. Both the lady and Zathrian will die when the curse is ended. This seems the best way.
I challenge Zathrian and have to fight him. Once done we see Zathrian end the curse, her dies and the lady vanishes. The wolves all become human again.
They are happy and leave to go and join society again.
I go back to the elves and they are happy that the curse has been lifted. The new keeper Lanaya, pledges to help us in the battle with the darkspawn.

I go back to the camp.
Morrigan tells us that she read a book we found in the mages tower. It tells us that Flemeth has managed to stay alive for centuries by basically having a daughter then when she dies posessing the daughters body. She is bascially an abomination.
Morrigan is angry and want to kill Flemeth.
She tells us that we need to go to Flemeth's hut without her and kill her. Morrigan will need her grimoire to prevent her return and her own possession.
I go to a new locationa and am attacked by darkspawn on the way. Wynne collapses, she makes light, but tells us that next time we are at camp she will tell us what is going on with her.

I find a merchant named Felix, he has lost his mule. This is more DLC being introduced as a tasks to accomplish. A bridge too far here EA/Bioware.

I go to Denerim, a city. I am to find a scholar regarding the urn.
Brother Genetivi has went missing on the search for the urn.
Weylon tells me he went to an Inn near lake Calenhad.
I go to the inn. The Innkeeper is very dodgy when asked about Gentivi. Nothing seems to work so I leave the inn and am attacked.
Looks like an ambush. Back inside the innkeeper tells us that he was threatened to keep quiet. I don't know what to do next. The quest log tells me I have to go back to Weylon.
Weylon is a cult member he attacks us and dies very quickly for his trouble.
I find a book in his room which tells us to go to a village called Haven.
In the village the guard is very hostile and basically tells us to leave.
Sten decides we aren't doing a good job and challenges us for leadership.
I fight him alone and win, he then gets back in line.
I find the village shop, the shopkeeper gets angry when I look around the shop.
He seems to be hiding something, when I go towards a door he attacks.
After killing him I find one of eamon's knights slain in the back room.
Outside in the village a gang of cultists attack.
I go to the chantry and find their leader, He suggests that they are guarding something important, presumably the urn of Andraste.
They all attack and it's a good fight.
I find Gentivi behind a brick wall that moves.
He wants to help, though is injured.
I go back out and make sure the villagers are all cleared out before taking gentivi with us.
We arrive at the temple, Gentivi lets us in using a medallion taken from the cultist leader.
Inside the temple Gentivi lets it slip that there will be loads of traps, he wisely wants to hang around by the door and lets us do the hard work.
Inside the temple is lots of corridor and dungeon, some keys to find and lots of cultists.
Then we have some caves, with cultists and dragonlings.
There are and awful lot of caves, and drakes and cultist, a bloody army of them.
Now they want to talk, why do they always want to talk after I have killed every one of their soldiers and am about to slit their throats.
The leader here tells us that andraste has risen again. Though a guardian of the urn of her ashes is keeping her at bay. He wants us to kill the guardian and if she drips some blood on the ashes she will gain her full power.
Whether this is really Andraste or not is the question, seems like blood magic and a demon posing as Andraste.
This is an impossible fight, two mages raining fire from a distance and three heavy hitters make short work of my party despite a few different attempts at strategy.
No matter how I play it Kolgrim still survives and kill what is left of my party.
I decide the ony way forward is to choose the other option, to side with Kolgrim.
I do and Wynne and sten disapprove strongly. Morrigan is ok with it though.
Kolgrim lets us pass and we go out onto the mountain top and the temple.
The Dragon is here and Kolgrim stops it toasting us.
I try fighting him here again and it's just too hard. I don't have the correct strength or party mix to kill him.
This game is unsure of it's difficulty curve, easy easy hard easy hard hard. With no consistent system.
I can only go forward, it's either that or abandon this quest line.
I suppose I could go and do something else and return once levelled up a bit.
I decide to try with an alternate save to see what the guardian says in the temple.
Maybe he can get rid of Kolgrim for me.
No, I won't be dictated to by this character, this is a game about choice, and I want to choose to kill this Kolgrim character.
I am leaving to go and do another quest, hopefuly to come back and melt this guy next time I face him.

I go back to camp to heal my many wounds.
Wynne tells me that she died during the battle in the tower, she was saved by a demon and brought back to life. Apparently this spirit is keeping her alive, it may be a good spirit. Wynne reveals that this spirt is weakening and she is living on borrowed time.

I do a side quest where I go and see what happened to a caravan. They are all dead, slain by genlocks.
Then one to help a settlement in trouble.
Another to investiagte what happened at a battle, both armies were wiped out by wolves and bears.

Mission 12 possibly?
I go to the frostback mountains. There are bounty hunters outside that are a tough fight.
The dawrves look down on surface dwelling dwarves, though they are needed as ambassadors for the underground dwarves.
I come to the main doors and find a dwarf barring entry to one of Loghains men. The dawrves have lost their king to illness. They are in flux about choosing a new one.
Loghains man gets stroppy and we fight them.
The dwarf lets us in.
Inside the first hall are some statues called paragons, a scholar tells us that the dwarves don't like to be seen to be in disarray by outsiders.
I enter the main area called the commons. In a cut scene we see two sides clash and one dwarf is killed by the others.
There are two sides vying for the kingship, both are using proxies to do their dirty work.
Bhelen is the son of the king who was called Endrin, however it appears that Bhelen is a bad egg and may have organised the deaths of the real heirs to the throne.
Lord Harrowmont appears to be the one who should be king.
A dwarf commander won't let us down into the mines, apparently there are darkspawn down there.
There is a place called the proving grounds where disputes are settled in the dwarf world.
I eventually find the diamond quarter and Bhelen's helper. He wants us to out that Harrowmont has bribed two people to vote for him, with the same money. Obviously he does not intend to pay.
I speak to Dulin, Harromont's aide. He wants us to enter the proving in Harrowmont's name.
I decide to go with Harrowmont.
I go to the proving grounds and have to fight a succession of one on one battles.
Once done I am champion of the proving. The ancestors are now said to be in favour of Lord Harrowmont.
I have to find Dulin at tapsters Tavern, he now knows we are on his side and takes us to Harrowmont.
Harrowmont wants us to clean up the slum called dust town, this will seal his way to becoming King.
Jarvia is in charge of Dust town. I find some of her men after asking around, they try to kill us. I take the key from their corpses to jarvia's hideout. There is a suspicous door in the dust town main area.
Inside the door is a labyrynth of caves filled with carta members. I eventually fight my way through this lot and seem to have murdered more dwarves than there is in the city above.
I eventually come to Jarvia and kill her.
Back at Harrowmint we have more issues. The vote has been asked for and now the assembly is locked for days. The only way we can get a decision forced quickly is to find a lost paragon called brankha, who went into the mines and has got lost down there.
More dungeons to crawl eh!
Brankha's drunken husband Ogrhen wants to help find her.
Brankha was looking for the anvil of the void, which can be used to make Golem's.
I go back into mine door towards the deep roads.
Here I find tunnels that the darkspawn have dug into the dwarf mines to attack them.
This cardins cross is a big area with lots of darkspawn to clear out. New enemies are shrieks, and darkstalker, they are like little dinosaurs.
I enventually find the road to Ortain Thaig which is where branka is meant to have gone.
On this road there are lots of darkspawn corpses, seems the spiders down here have no love for the darkspawn.
I find evidence of a long disused dwarf settlement. A golem attacks here along with indignant spirits.
A dwarf runs away from us and tell us that this claim is his.
I find his camp and he won't believe that we aren't there to steal from him, he attacks and we have to kill him.
I find Brankha's journal and the spider queen for a boss battle.
The journal tells us that she is deeper into the mines.
The dead trenches starts with a cut scene, we see the darkspawn massive army and the arch demon itself. We are in the heart of enemy territory.
I find some dwarf suicide warrior cult down here fighting the darkspawn and help them out.
The dead legion leader isn't much help but does tell us that Brankha is dead.
I come to some large gates which seem to be an old dwarf structure.
we start to see the fleshy growths again which were seen in the mages tower.
I find a mad woman called Hespith, who is reciting a grisly rhyme. She seems to be from Branhka's party.
Looks like something nasty has befallen them.
I come to a shrine, or what looks like a church. There are ghostly dwarves standing around, however they don't react to our presence, yet.
I find a key on an altar and then the spirits attack.
Seems Hespith's pal lauren was forced to eat the males that were with them by the darkspawn.
She became a brood mother and made more Darkspawn.
We see a cutscene and find a monster made out of tits and tentacles.
I kill the broodmother by hiding up the side of it's cave and using area effect spells using Morrigan.
Hespith tells us something about the darkspawn but it's garbled ravings.
seems they need humans to make broodmothers to make more darkspawn. Brankha may have had something to do with the creation of this one.
I come to a new area aptly called the anvil of the void and we meet Brankha, she seems grumpy.
She tell Oghren her husband to turn back and is flippant about the needs of the dwarf lords.
She is preoccupied, in trying to get the anvil. She thinks that it can create an army of golems to aid against the darkspawn.
Seems that the person who made or last had the anvil has set a lot of traps.
Brankha has been making darkspawn using the broodmother in order to get past the traps.
The traps include a room full of gas and golems. Which need the gas valves to be switched off before you can survive long enough to fight the golems.
Then a room with loads of golems.
We then reach the anvil. It is a large lyrium vein with four anvils around it. Enraged spirits appear and fight you, once they are downed you use an anvil and it shoots at the stone statue that appears to be producing the spirits. It seems you have to do this an awful lot before winning. I used a glitch which sees the spirits leave morrigan alone if she was far enough away.
I enter a room with a lot of golems, their leader approaches. He is Caridin, one of the dwarf Paragons.
Caridin tells us that he was once a dwarf who created the anvil. The anvil turns anyone put on it into a golem. The king of the time used volunteers for his army at first, however soon people were forced into it. Caridin was as well, however he retained his mind as he has no control rod. The anvil was sealed away by Caridin, now a powerful golem, and he has sought to destroy it. He asks that we help him destroy it. Brankha is nuts, she may have wanted the anvil for good reason, but her means have not been good.
I decide to help Caridin destroy the anvil. This of course puts us at odds with Brankha.
***********************************************
Brankha fight is very very hard, she has a huge amount of health. She has around four golems on her side. My team are decimated almost entirely in seconds.
There is no way to go back out of here and come back at a higher level for the fight which is a cardinal RPG sin. Bioware should know better.
I work on my strategy and try hard to defeat Brankha, she just kills my team as quick as I can heal and revive them, I am not taking her health down fast enough.
This is an admission of defeat and it makes me hate the game, but I have to lower the difficultty level to get past this fight and progress. I turn down the difficulty and win the fight almost without trying.
*************************************************
After Brankha is defeated I speak to Caridin, he makes a crown for the king of our choice. I then destroy the anvil and he jumps into the lava.
I find a golem registry which shows the names of all the dwarfs who were turned into golems.
I take a tracing as Oghren thinks it will be valuable.

In cut scene back at Orzamar we see the assembly
I get to choose who to give the crown to, I choose Harrowmont.
Bhelen tries to fight his way out of losing and he gets taken down easy.
Harrowmont pledges to aid us against the blight and we get a staff from him.

I go back to the guardian on the mountain, hoping to kill Kolgrim, however, I can't fight him as he is locked out of conversation. I have to go and speak to the guardian.
The spirit asks about our parents and is happy when I say I am guilty about leaving them to their fate.
Sten and Wynne and Morrigan are asked questions as well.
I pass the guardian and then find a locked door and eight spirits who have riddles for us.
If you get the riddle wrong you have an enemy to fight. Correct answers open the door without a fight.
Inside the door I meet Elissa's father, who gives a gift.
We then have to fight invisible versions of ourselves.
Now we have to make a bridge appear by placing party members on floor tiles.
We then have to get naked and walk through a fire.
I come to the urn and take a pinch. There is no way I am going to do what Kolgrim wants.
I come out to meet and enraged Kolgrim and it is very satisfying to takje him down.
I have a go at fighting the high dragon and it's too much.
I find Genetivi at the door and tell him that he can share the discovery with the world.
I go back to Redcliffe and meet Teagan, he starts a cut scene where we see Eamon being woken and told about what happened.
He pledges support and gives us a shield. He then discusses the future. He feels that a campaign against Loghain is a waste of life and counter productive when darkspawn are attacking as well. He suggest alternative means other than direct conflict.
Loghain's sister has claim to the throne, however Alastairs is much more direct.
He suggests a meeting of the nobilty, where the matters of who is to lead can be judged in strict council.
We also have to decide Jowan's fate, the blood mage who started all this. I play for his life and Eammon sends him to the mages to decide his fate.

I decide to go back to Flemeth's hut and do Morrigans quest. No I won't, she turns into a dragon that is beyond me to kill.
I go back to the mages and do small small bits and bobs, telling the mages of the dwarf that wants to study magic etc.

The Landsmeet
I go back to the main plotline and we see Loghain meet with us in denerim.
There is a tense meeting, Howe is there and I tell him I will have revenge for my family.
Loghain tells us that we are dividing the country and that we should essentially watch our backs.
I find myself in denerim at Eamons house there.
One of the queen's maids who is Loghains daughter by the way come to eamon and tells him that the queen has been imprisoned. It appears that Loghain is going to kill his own daughter and blame it on Eamon.
We are to go and rescue the queen.
On the way we meet one of the crowes an old friend of Zevran, he turns on us and we have to fight a large number of assassins and Zevran.
I arrive at the place and we have to sneak around back.
Some soldiers to fight then we have a hide and seek bit where the elf maid distracts the guards and we go inside.
We are disguised as guards and can move freely. Inside we come to the place where Enora is being locked up. A spell has been cast on the door. We need the mage who cast it to undo it.
Looks like scerecy is out the window.
I go to the dungeons and we find a grey warden imprisoned. I let him out and he goes.
I go through the dungeons and eventually find Howe and kill him.
I get his key to the door. Anora comes out, and is ready to come with us.
I meet a templar horde just outside. The fight is over in seconds. I am about to curse the game for yet another uneven difficulty bump when a cut scene kicks in.
The warden has been captured and Anora goes to eamon with the rest of our party somehow.

I find myself in a cell, there is another prisoner nearby. A guard comes by and we can tempt him to come in. I end up bare knuckle fighting with him and get his keys.
Our gear is nearby in a chest.
Occasionally there are long long load times after a death.
ooohh look a big difficulty spike, suddenly along my warrior can't take on two dogs and a guard without dying like a wimp.
*****************************************
Again I have to knock the difficulty down to the insulting casual to take out two dogs and a guard!!!! This is how to make people hate your game!
I get to put on a guard uniform and walk about unmolested.
I find a door with two guards at it. They want a password.
Here we are supposed to find a guard commander who sends us to a patrol and then we go with the patrol. However I broke the quest by killing the two guards I was meant to patrol with.
Stupid stupid game.
I manage to get an autosave a little while back by pure luck.
I get to the commander and he sends me to the guards, the guards have done something wrong and need the quartermaster to give them their blades back.
He won't no matter what I say. looks like fighting is the only way out, so back to casual difficulty as there is no way otherwise.
There is still no way, even on casual difficulty I can't fight past the four guards that attack in the courtyard.
I officially detest this stupid game.
I go to a map location and find a brothel. I meet a duelist in here, who want to play cards.
I do some small chantry quests, which basically see you go around small areas of the city and kill gangs.
I find a gang of blood mages hiding under the city in a hideout as well.

I manage to defeat the guards at the Howe estate this time, which I only mangage due to the fucked up a.i. I hide my warrior at the end of the corridor and they all stay in the room.
I manage to lure one at a time and kill them that way.
Back at Eamons house we speak with Anora, she tells us of his madness.
Seems we will still need to get more of the nobles on our side. The elves in the alienage are all stirred up and it seems Loghain may have a hand in this.
Anora wants us to join with her and keep her as Queen. Eamon thinks that Alastair is still the better choice. Though if they were to marry and he become King with her as queen then the bloodline would be maintained.
I speak to Anora, she wants us to support her at the Landsmeet.
I try and get her to marry Alastair.
Alastair on the other hand isn't having any of it.
I enter the Elf alienage, which seems to be a chinatown style ethnic district. There is a plauge here however. The elves are being treated by Tevinter's who have came to cure them.
There is some doubt that any curing is going on however.
I try and enter and am barred, not for long as I kill all the guards.
Inside is empty but for a few more guards to kill, a note suggests that people are being taken as slaves.
I meet ser Otto, a blind templar sent to investigate what is going on here.
I go into the back alley and find an elf who tells of the soldiders taking loads of elves away.
I find out that the Tevinter Imperium soliders have been told to come in and take the elves. They have Dispensation, maybe even from Loghain.
I cut through the many rooms and eventually find their leader. He tries to deal, I don't and take him down.
I let him live though.
I find a pool of blood that smells of rotten eggs. A beggar is rambling about bad men in the orphanage. I think this is what Otto was talking about.
I talk to him and he wants to go to the orphanage.
Inside the orphangae are rabid wardogs and ghostly children.
Oh and some demons. I clear out the demons, Otto vanishes, maybe he died.
I go back to Eamon and tell him of Loghain's involvement with the slavers.
Now It's time for the landsmeet to take place.
It does not go well. Loghain refutes our claims with some actual sense. Calen was stupid to charge the blight head on. Did Loghain really save a good portion of the army by retreating.
He also questions Alastairs lineage.
The crushing blow comes when Anora comes in on Loghains side and tells the gathering that we kidnapped her.
Thing go pear shaped and we have to fight. It's a hard fight but it seem to end if you concetrate on Loghain himself.
A cut scen shows the fight being stopped by the chantry and they suggest single combat should be the way forward. I get to choose who will fight Loghain.
No saving allowed so you can backtrack and choose a better fighter, in case Loghain turns out to be super powered.
No worries actually, Loghain is a pussy and falls to Morrigan quickly.
We get to choose wether he lives or dies, actually I really want to kill him as he has done his best to kill me and screw up the world. He really does deserve it along with his daughter.
Fuck it, it's a game, why not do the wrong thing once in a while.
Riordan the Grey warden intervenes and suggests making him a grey warden.
The joining would either kill Loghain or make him at least sympathetic to the cause against the darkspawn.
Alastair disapproves of even thinking about it. I am trying to navigate an good path here and it seems there is no winning if you try and be merciful. Time for Loghain to die.
I name Alastair as king, then execute Loghain.
Alastair locks Anora up rather than execute her.
He makes Eamon regent until after the darkspawn. Now It's time to take on the blight.

I go to Redcliffe and find the darkspawn already there.
At the castle we have a big battle in the courtyard.
Inside we meet Riordan and Eamon. The horde are not heading to redcliffe. They are going to Dennerim.
The archdemon is at the head of the demon army.
We now have a choice. Worry about redcliffe, March to Denerim with army we have? Is it possible to reach the city in time? Do we even have enough forces to do the job.
I ask a side question and Alastair decides anyway.
Looks like we are going to Dennerim to take the blight on head on.
I go to meet with Riordan, who tells us of the Grey Warden's real role in ending a blight. It seems that the Archdemon can body hop when it's body is slain. If A grey warden does the Killing then they can absorb the Archdemon's soul. The Grey warden will die in the process finally killing the Archdemon. If anyone else kills it then it will come back again.
I go to my room as directed and Find Morrigan waiting.
She gives us a new option, she can perform a blood magic spell which will see her having sex with alastair and conceiving a child with him. This child will have the taint as it is Alastairs, essentially a grey warden. Morrigan is convinced that the child in her womb will be chosen as a target by the free soul of the Archdemon. She thinks that the child will kill the Archdemon and not be destroyed itself. She then thinks that this child will grow to have the power of an old God.
Morrigan reveals that flemeth planned this from the start and that is why Morrigann is with them.
I agree and am urged to go and speak with alastair.
Who takes a little Persuasion but the deed is done.
A little cut scene shows Morrigan climb into bed with alastair and blow out the candle.
A cut scene shows the armies gathering and leaving for Dennerim.
Then alastair making a rousing speech, we see the battle start and our group enter the city.
Inside the city we fight alone with lots of allies against a horde of Darkspawn.
after that we speak with riordan and he tells us the plan. The army won't be able to take out the darkspawn horde, it's too big. The Archdemon must be the target adn quickly.
The plan is to lead it to a fight and kill it. It will call it's generals to it. If we take them out first then we may have a chance.
I get to choose my party.
Now inside the city we fight hordes of orges, however we can summon around 12 of each army to help us in the fight.
I then switch to the other three team members who are guarding the gate and have to stop an influx of darkspawn.
A cut scene shows Riordan jumping on the archdemon's back and stabbing it before falling to his death. He has wounded it severly though.
We have some large scale fights leading up to the royal palace. Then onto fort Drakon.
Inside are some more fights, what would you know, I never expected that.
After much fighting we come to the roof of fort drakon and the Archdemon. Inn cut scene we see it making a mess of about twenty soldiers.
Now it's our turn to fight it.
Boy this is going to be hard, even on casual.
Each time I get so far and it calls in some aid. I thought I had taken out the aid. Obviously not.
The question is will I be able to go back and get them or am I stuck again. This is casual you know?
No I can't get back out of fort Drakon, again unexplained and unhelpful design has ensured that I can't progress.
I manage to find a glitch, if you get yourself far enough away from the battle the a.i. stops, if you can't see the fight then it isn't happening. This means that the horde of darkspawn and soldiers are simply paused.
I use the ballista to pound the dragon, it takes ages and eventually it goes down.
We see some congratulatory scene's Alastair gives us a wish. I ask to keep on keeping on.
We go down the hall chatting to everyone then out to meet the adoring public. A series of images accompanies text telling us what happens next. While some of it is good the dwarves seem intent on making a mess of things.
The credits roll.

430 Achievement points
48 hours on the in game timer. Though I think it may acutally be more than that.

Dead Space 2 Notes

2011-02-21T03:07:00.001-08:00

On booting the game I am prompted to enter the code from the back of the manual that allows multiplayer to be played. This is to discourage second hand sales.
Next I choose to start the game. Interestingly I am given the choice to watch a recap movie of Dead Space 1.
I choose normal difficulty, I remember how this works. You are expected to earn upgrades on one play through and then go back for the harder difficulties with an upgraded Isaac.
Controls
Left and right analogue sticks from camera and movement. Third person view of Isaac from behind.
Right bumper is run.
A is interact.
B is use.
Y is stasis
Right bumper is stomp.
Left trigger is aim.
Clicking the right stick is a waypoint indicator.
Mission 1
First images are of a communication from the Ishimura from Nicole.
It shows a video call between Isaac and Nicole, she tells him that she is glad he pushed her to take the job on the Ishimura.
The call is a flashback that Isaac is having as a psychologist talks to him in his office.
We see Nicole's ghostly figure behind the doctor injecting herself to commit suicide.
The doctor tells us that Isaac went to the Ishimura on a rescue mission and asks what he found.
Isaac sees the marker and Nicole in front of it. She is bloody and jumps up on the desk and screams at him, her face lights up from within as if there is a fireball inside her head.
Isaac blanks out.
He comes to in a different room and another medic is shining a light in his eye. Things don't look so good now though. It appears the trouble has already started.
The medic tells Isaac that they have to be careful. He is speared from behind by a necromoprh and it sticks spikes into his head. In seconds he transforms into a full necromoprh and attacks. Isaac knocks it aside and still in our straight jacket we are told by a female voice over the radio to run.
There are necromorphs of various shapes and sizes running around everywhere and there is only one safe path we can run through to get away. Getting to a door we are grabbed automatically.
Pressing A fast makes Isaac kick away the necromorph attacker and it gets caught in the door and cut in half.
We now stand up in a hospital bay type area and find a save point.
In the next room some other humans attack us but are killed by necromoprh tentacles from the ceiling.
A video plays showing someone being experimented on by a doctor. Seems they have been fiddling with something they shouldn't. This room is above cells, like an observation room.
We can see that the people in the cells are all dead now.
In the next area we meet the doctor from the video. He is standing etching something into the glass with a scalpel. He grabs Isaac and gibbers madly. Isaac asks him to free him and they can both get out of here. The doctor frees him and tells him that there is health in a locker.
In the locker is a health pack and a torch. The torch is used like a weapon.
The doctor slits his own throat and dies.
Someone called Dana calls Isaac and tells him to meet her. she says he has a form of dementia that will kill him unless treated.
Isaac asks why he should trust her, she tells him that she isn't shooting at him.
Which is a fairly good point.
we come through a fairly unsettling dark room, using the flashlight to see.
I expect things to jump out, but it's only the television which scares me.
save point.
In a room full of pipes that make us jump by splashing water occasionally Isaac has a vision, he sees shadows of Necromoprhs. Is this the dementia that Dana Mentions.
We get to climb into an air vent, which is new. Potential for scares is ramped up by nothing happening this time.
Then we fall out through the bottom of the vent into a room.
A body is held floating above what looks like an operating table.
Dana asks us what happened, Isaac and her bond a little.
We can't get out of this room. There is a panel on the machine. I open it and Isaac reaches inside and pulls out some wires. This gives us kinesis grab powers.
We can pick up certain items and then holding them in front of us hurl them through glass.
This allows us to smash the glass wall and get out. Necromorphs attack and we have to spear them with a supply of handy spears.
In the next area we do the same.
We come to a room where a necromorph strapped to a table blocks the way. In a confusing fashion he can't be meleed.
We go into a room where a man is undergoing surgery. Poor timing as he has been left abandoned mid procedure.
We start to grab a plasma cutter out of the machinery as more Necromorphs burst in.
Now we are talking, back to the usual shooting off the legs and limbs of hordes of necromorphs.
I move on past the blocking necromorph who is easily shot with the plasma cutter.
save point.
I come into a reception area and the fire extinguiser system scares the shit out of me this time.
Three necromoprhs attack. Stamping on their corspses drops loot.
I make my way through a few rooms, all have loot to pick up, med packs and ammo.
I come to a door which has an alarm blaring, something about unauthorised personnel. Really, no, I never noticed. Inside a man recognises Isaac and tells him to follow him.
I follow the man from the video earlier to a security grill which comes down and seperates us. He tells us that he is patient 5 and to remember. Dana calls and asks Isaac what is happening. He tells her that he is stuck by the security lock down. She gets angry and Isaac. Isaac tells her that he can take care of himself and doesn't need her. She tells us to get on with it then. Five necromorphs burst in. I kill them. Isaac thinks better of it and begs Dana to speak with him again. She gives him a new route.
I move along and find a save point.
In the next area we have to hack a machine. This is done by rotating the left stick until a dial goes blue then pressing A. Moving the stick the wrong way slows you down and you only have a limited time to hack.
This gives us stasis power. Which is handy as a new Necromorph appears that can kill you instantly with one hit. Using Y to slow it down gives you time to kill it.
We are shown that there are stasis packs to pick up, stasis stations to recharge it. It also recharges itself slowly.
A security door can be opened with a switch, however walking close by sets of an alarm as we are not in the doors pass through list. Shooting the door when it is open before approaching it makes it close to slowly to prevent us passing.
I am introduced to new vomiting necromorphs which spray acid at you.
I get into a lift and during the lift ride the lights go out. We see Nicole as before with the glowing eyes, she is singing twinkle twinkle little star. She screams and lights up again and we are back to normal. A vision.
In this new area a window breaks and vents the atmosphere to space. Isaac hangs on for his life. I am told to shoot a lockdown switch, which brings shutters down and stops the leak of atmosphere.
I find a shop and we can finally get Isaac into his armoured suit.
Which is just as well as the next area is decompressed and open to space. We have 100 seconds of air to negotiate this area. Which is uneventful and done in under half that.
In a large open room which looks like a transit station for passenger space ships we are attacked by the first boss.
A mushed amalgam of necromoprhs it has two long arms to leap around on and a nondescropt body.
We are told by Dana that Isaac has been imprinted with the marker signals which are self replicating in the brain and will eventually reach a level that will kill Isaac and i presume turn him into a necromorph. We have to get to Dana quickly and she can stop the process.
We go through a vent and at the other end of it we are told it's chapter 2
Chapter 2
Here is another store where I buy the line gun. There is also a bench where you can use the nodes to upgrade equipment.
In an airport like area we see a video of the leader/bad guy. Tiedmann is declaring martial law.
I enter an area with a lot of people being attacked and killed by necromorphs. There is a room here that needs a power node to open. This seems a folly to use your nodes to open doors, however, the loot inside is worth it.
I go down in a lift and see the other test subject across the way trying to talk to us again.
We are now in a residential building which is also full of necromorphs.
There is an area where we get trapped in with a lot of necromoprhs for the first time.
Progressing through the building is fairly straightforward here.
Going down in a lift Dana tells us that Tiedmann built another marker.
We find some new monsters here, they have large glowing yellow orbs on one arm. This is an explosive suicide attack. Though you can shoot it when the enemies are away from you to blow them up.
I come to a subway station and have to take out a necromoprh spawner that will turn the dead bodies on the gorund into more necromorphs if left unchecked.
We then have to get on the train and activate it. This turns into a runaway train ride through zero g with lots of necromorphs to kill.
When the train finally crashes we are left hanging by our foot as a bunch of necromorphs converge. Once they are dealth with a large one appear and you have to shoot it until it retreats.
The train nearly crushes you and then you are left asking Dana for a new route.
In a new shopping type area I am attacked by necromoprh children.
We progress through a shopping mall like area unmolested and enter a unitology recruiting centre.
We have a decompression to avoid and some children to kill here.
Then through an air vent.
We come to a waste processing facilty, there are huge machines clunking around.
I find a switch which turns off the machine. This allows us into the crusher area where we get to use zero G. You turn on and off your magnetic boots by pressing in the left stick.
Left bumper also boots you with jet nozzles on the suit.
I get to fly around here and explore. Nothing attacks you which is good.
I find a switch which turns on the huge feeder fan, we can then fly against the wind to a new area.
Here we have to replace a power unit in it socket to turn on the door systems.
We come through some untiology dwellings, filled with marker worship lore.
A childrens room sees another vision of Nicole.
Tiedmanns men are tracking Isaac using a small ship which can be seen at time outside the windows.
We move down through the building to a large square with a statue of the marker.
Here we have a big fight with a bunch of the necromorph types we have met so far.
Now we enter the unitology church proper. Tiedmanns gunship starts shooting at us and we have to get through the decompressed hall quickly.
We then make our way through the gothic church like interior fighting necromoprhs and spawners.
We have a room where we have to move two small power nodes to the right places on a junction box. We then have to get past a broken rapidly slamming door using stasis.
After a save point we go through an air vent. After emerging from it the ghostly Nicole tries to stab Isaac with a syringe. He suddenly finds that he is holding the syringe himself and driving it towards his own face.
We come down into a circular area with large statues. A door is smashed as we approach by something big can be seen lurking around the statues staying out of our sight.
These new monsters are called stalkers. They are bigger necromoprhs of similar design, however they use a charging battering ram style attack that is fairly deadly if you get caught in it.
I kill the four that attack and then hack a panel and up in a lift.
We come to a funeral chapel and are attacked by more necromorphs and the little annoying things in large numbers.
Chapter 5
We are now in what is called the crypt. There are lots of frozen people in chambers. Possibly dead or just cryogenically frozen.
We are attacked by necromorphs here and then move into a puzzle area.
Here we have a door near ther ceiling which we need to get to. However the gravity device is offline and we need to fix it.
We have to use stasis on a series of concentric spinning rings to trap the rings and use kinetics to bring clamps down. When all is clamped zero g is started up in the room and we can use stasis to stop a huge fan and get through the door.
Dana tells us that they are using a mobile device, probably on the gunship to block their signal.
I come to a shop and buy the security suit and javelin gun.
Also a bench and save point. We see the small bug like aliens from the first game here.
We are now in a much more ornate part of the unitology church.
This is from the demo, a large church with balconies around the side.
We are attacked by a huge monster in the church which waves it's glowy yellow haemorrhoid at us until we shoot it enough.
Then we get a bunch of the children in large numbers.
Then more necromoprhs around the balcony.
We get another message from Nicole, more jibberish and the idea that Isaac is trying to kill himself.
We come to a viewing gallery with a nice view of the Sprawl.
Dana is waiting, as we walk in we are grabbed by two men.
It seems that Dana is a unitologist scientist. She reveals that Isaac built the marker for the unitologists. The drop ship arrives and shoots up everyone but Isaac, and that is only because of his armour. He dives down a vent shaft in cut scene and we come face to face with the large monster from earlier, when we were hanging from the train.
We have to shoot it's yellow point then avoid it running down a corrior. The gunship arrives and shoots everything to hell. Isaac is sucked out into space as is the monster. Both grab onto the gunship and we are held by the monster on the gunship.
We have to shoot explosives that are flying around being knocked off the gunship and it blows. Isaac is shot off into the Sprawl and flies through a window.
We are contacted by Isaac and it seems that the new objective is to get to the marker now and disable it.
chapter 6
A dea soldiers has a video playing on a loop. A soldiers is saying that the endgame is in effect and contingencies are in place for lost assets.
We are back in the residential area we were in before.
We backtrack a few areas and there is new loot and in the large area with statues of woman and the marker we are attacked by the scorpions and new butterball type enemies.
In the next area we find explosive mines, well the necromoprh version, lumps of pulsating flesh that jettison yellow explosive lumps when you go too near.
I find a node door here.
We then come to a large open area which has no gravity.
There is also a huge fire we can't get past.
There are three oxygen stations in the room which are rapidly trying to restore atmosphere.
We have to to turn them off. Each one has a battery to remove.
Once done the fire is starved of oxygen and we can proceed.
There are two of the little bug necromorphs here.
We then have to put a working battery in the lift, the batteries from the air stations will do nicely.
We come to a large area filled with storage crates. The stalkers are back here.
We come back onto the childrens, shopping mall type area and find another human fighting the necromorphs and doing better than the usual cannon fodder. She tells us that her name is Elle and she is deeply distrustful. She leave in an eleavtor and tells us not to follow her.
Folloeinh her anyway I go down the elevator and find a large area filled with the mine poppers. This area is a challenging cluster of monsters, arriving from front and back at the same time.
We are now in the nursery area. Were we have a quick lesson, we see a woman try and coax a baby necromorph to her. It comes, she cuddles it and then they both explode.
We are then attacked by the babies which simply home in then blow up.
We move through the school until I come to the school hall which is set up for a play.
We go to the stage and hack a panel, this lets in a horde of child and baby necromorphs.
Through the school some more, finding the flamethrower schematic in a classroom that isn't on the route.
I also find a power node or two hidden here, in a doorway and a rocket in the playground type area.
This is the end of the school area and Elle appears on the videophone, she has Strauss. Isaac pleads with her to take him to the hub, which I am presuming is where the marker is.
I come to a large room with a balcony above it. Elle and strauss appear on the balcony.
As they Chat Tiedmann calls directly for the first time.
He cuts the power and the necromorphs arrive. Elle annd Strauss have some oridnary ones, however we have a brute to deal with. It's a simple home and charge variety of boss. Using mines in it's path and stasis to avoid when it gets close make an easy fight.
Isaac explains to Elle that the marker is the cause of the trouble and was created from data extracted from Isaac and Strauss's heads. She reluctantly agrees that the only way forward is to destroy it.
The route is blocked becuase Tiedmann has turned off the power and life support to the whole section of space station. We need to do game type stuff to proceed basically.
We come to a new enemy, a mass on the wall that spits out smaller masses that wave tentacles around. If you don't kill the big mass first then you have loads of smaller ones to deal with.
I get in a lift and am asked to insert disc 2 here.
Chapter 7
The docking pod to the solar array is off it's rail. Isaac needs to fix it.
I enter a large room and have to shoot gas vents which makes them fire, all you have to do here is get the large lift to move up to the ceiling where grapple beams hold it in place.
I then get into the lift. The ride up is a long one and the large necromorphs obviously like shiny lifts. Three or four large ones bash in the windows and try and scoop you out.
Basically all you need to do here is survive until the top of the ride.
I am finding glowing barrels here than can be picked up and shot, they put what they hit into stasis for a longer time than usual.
I come to a new room in the solar array and an a.i. holopgram meets me.
Up in the solar array paltform the lonely curator had a liking for birds and there are still many in cages alive and well.
The a.i, well computer really as it's thick. Won't open the door for Isaac, but will for the curators corpse. Further on she wants a verbal password, when none is forthcoming she turns on laser tripwires.
Further in we are hemmed in by tripwires and attacked, of course the necromorphs don't notice the tripwires and blunder straight in sending the whole place up in a bang. The window is blown out and we have to shoot a red point to slam down the shutters.
I then have to hack a panel to make a lift work.
Up in the lift we have to move a panel aside and bring down a platform using kinesis.
We then enter a corrdor, the computer vents the air and we have to hack a panel to restore it. Necromoprhs attack and you are against you airs clock.
Now we are at the mainframe, Tiedmann speaks and tell us that we can't be allowed to restore power to the sprawl. He tell the computer, named anti to lock down the mainframe.
We now have to get her offline to progress.
I enter a crawlspace and in a room have to put four fuses into sockets, there is a helpful display of the pattern nearby.
This brings up a panel that shuts down a portion of the machines.
You have to go back out and rotate the crawlspace with a switch here and then do the same in another room. This brings out lots of enemies and opens the door to the a.i. core.
Shooting all the fuses brings her offline.
We now get into the actual solar array control room.
Here we can get out into space at the actual slar mirrors and panels to aling them manually.
We have to move two mirrors into place and avoid a large necromoph which shoots thing at us from a distance.
Once done Elle and Strauss are in trouble, they need to take the transport quickly as hordes of necromoprhs are arriving.
Isaac need to get down to them quickly. He uses an ejector seat from the station to power himself back down, we end up flying down through a debris field. Which is exhilarating.
We then are back where we first spoke with tiedmann in the balcony room.
Here there are lots of explosions and we are plunged into airlessness.
Loads of necromorphs arrive and we have to stay alive until Elle gets a door open for us.
Chapter 8
I fight through some rooms and find a power node room. After a few corridors I come to a room with a door and glass viewing window into the next area. Strauss and Elle are in the room. However the door is jammed by previous occupants who were trying to keep out the necromorphs and failed. Isaac will have to pass through the processing plant to get to them.
We come to a puzzle with a door wedged half open, Isaac can't get through, however there is a loose thruster in the room, we can attach it to the other side of the door and shoot it to force the door open.
In the next room are lots of gears with teeth. Tiedmann appear on the comm and tells us that he is turning it on again. We now have to get through the moving jaws of hell.
There are several puzzles and tests of skill here, flying around in zero g with only hairs breadth between you and whirling death.
A few doors need opened with thrusters and some of the small shooting necromorphs appear.
A large mass of flesh is at the end of a long tunnel filled with jetting flames. A few mines make quick work of it as it fires blobs of missile like organics at you.
We come to a door and find the room where we were just a minute ago cut off from Elle and Strauss. The next room see the three finally meet up. Strauss is losing it even more than usual and we still need to get to gov sector. There is a train the gang can use but it needs to be activated. Isaac is the volunteer to go do that of course.
Chapter 9
We enter a large factory area with huge moving machinery. Moving through this area we are attacked by large numbers of all the varieties of necromoprhs.
I come to a transport carriage which won't release. We need to work out a small gear puzzle, finding three parts of the system from the room around us.
The car is then activated and we can trigger it to move.
The car takes us via a nicole vision to Elle and Strauss.
Elle programs the car to take us to where we are going. On the way through the windows Isaac sees the Ishimura docked at the sprawl. Elle tells him that it was sad about what happened on board and tells Isaac that it was a terrorist attack. Isaac informs her that what is happening now started on the Ishimura.
The car is rocked and stops. Isaac dismounts to see what is stopping them.
In the next large warehouse like area there are lots of varied necromorph attacks.
I buy the vintage suit after a corridor filled with flesh nodes and necromoprhs.
We come to the blockage, large tentacles have filled an area. There are also pods filled with explosives in the area. I shoot one of the tanks with exploding barrels and it blow clearing the blockage.
Isaac wants to set of the rest of the explosives for some reason and Elle is dubious.
As we start a three legged beastie appears. Seems this is their nest.
That is why Isaac wants to blow it up.
We have to avoid the beasties and shoot the explosives with the barrels.
When done we have to leg it up in a lift then into the car.
In the car Tiedman calls as we are in space passing the Isimura. He sounds pleased with himself and sure enough a large cutting beam smashes the tracks in front of us. Isaac tells Elle to park the car by the Ishimura. Isaac thinks he can use it's beams to take the car where we need to go.
chapter 10
Elle thinks this is a bad idea. Isaac goes on alone back into the Ishimura and we enter the area form the first games first level, only it is under repair after the damage it took in the first game.
The trip through the old game is nostaligc, passing through areas that are burned into memory from the original, just altered, under repair is nice. Though hoepfully it won't go on too long.
The tension builds as you pass through a great deal of unpopulated area. Of course a scare is coming. A large creature jumps from behind a pile of boxes and is a pain to kill.
We are down on the rails of the trains that run around the Ishimura. Here we are attacked by loads of necromorphs, brutes and almost all varieties at once. This is very hard to survive.
I manage to hack a lift and get up to the train station.
Now I know the game is playing for time, making stacks of enemies in tight spaces.
Now we are back in a room we had in the first game, the gravity control room.
We have a puzzle, a pipe flowing along a central pillar has bits missing. We need to find the bits and put them in, in the right order. The gravity centrifuge in now online.
We do this without necromorph interference, which is strange.
On the way back through the empty decontamination room I passed through earlier I am ambushed.
Back to the train station and there is a tram. I get on. Strauss has got madder and has bit Elle and now isn't talking to her at all.
The train stops at the medical deck as there is an obstruction. Getting too much Ishimura now.
A few glitches here, Isaac was wading hip deep in the train for a few seconds and I got knocked into a wall and could continue shooting while the death animation played.
The medical deck is glowing blue with strange glowing graffiti.
Here we have a large room that fills with necromorphs and then after hacking a door fills again.
We have the scanner suite now, which as last time has the moving boom arm and loads of necromorphs.
I come to a store and save point, I buy the force gun.
More corridors and I find myself on the bridge of the Ishimura.
Some fights as usual and down into the captains nest.
Here we activate the gravity tethers that will send Elle and Strauss on their way.
Isaac tells them he will use one of the Ishimura's escape pods and meet them at the governemnt sector.
Teidmann calls and sounds angry, telling Isaac that he will tear the whole moon apart.
Isaac gets in the escape pod and is troubled by Nicole visions again.
The pod is hit in flight and crash lands. Isaac has a vision of Nicole when he is unconscious.
When he comes too Strauss is trying to drive a screwdriver into Elle's brain.
Chapter 11
We crash land in a docking airlock of some kind, descend down a long ramp filled with dangers then into corridors, the place is falling apart here, possibly the gravity beams we triggered are causing this. strauss calls, seems he has killed Elle though I am not so sure.
It seems we are inside the mining operation of the asteroid chunk.
I come to a large mining area with lots of open area to fight in.
After killing lots and lots of necromorphs I replace a dud power unit in it's socket and go through a door.
Elle and Strauss appear, Strauss has her eye on a stick, but she isn't dead.
Isaac is grabbed by a tentacle and thrown out into space.
Here we have a tentacle spitting at you to kill then some laser pods which are blocking the way into the interior. You have to attach thrusters and move the pods to get in.
Of course you have to find air to survive.
Inside Strauss and Elle are split up. Elle thinks that Strauss is now after Isaac.
We progress through a large room with lots of fights. Feels a bit fight boxy here.
As I open a door in cutscene Strauss grabs Isaac and tries to kill him with the screwdriver.
Isaac ends up killing him with it.
We then take an elevator ride with some miner necromorphs.
Nicole appears again, She asks Isaac if he is hanging onto her because he loves her or wether he feels guilty about her death.
He tells her that is he lets go of her he will have nothing left.
She changes back to normal from glowy mouth and eye Nicole and tells him that step 4 is acceptance.
I can afford to get the advanced suit here.
Chapter 12
We find Elle at a huge drilling machine. Isaac tells her that Strauss is dead. She isn't sorry. Elle asks what happens next. Isaac tells her that he is ready to destroy the marker.
We have to find a power cell to get the drill working.
One I find the power cell I have to find a circuit board. Then hack the machine.
Now elle turns it around and we have to get on the lift under heavy attack.
Once on the back of the machine. This is a small square of death really.
Hordes of necromporhs attack. After the worst we ride on through the guts of the biomass that the marker seems intent on creating.
Eventually we reach the government sector.
Elle wants to plough on in with the drill. Isaac reminds her that he is riding on top of it.
We burst in and Isaac is shaken but not hurt.
Chapter 13
Now that we are in the gov sector it's time to find the marker. Hopefully.
Elle finds a working gunship.
Isaac heads for her and he then sends the ship away with her in it. He tells her to get out of the sprawl and escape. Nicole appears and he tells her that he can save Elle if he couldn't save nicole.
Tiedmann appears on the comm and tells Isaac that he had 200 soldiers between him and the marker.
I find my way back into the large room where the drill crashed in. Here we have a hoard of necromporhs to survive and the door to hack to get in.
Inside is a security centre and if you simply walk in you get blasted to pieces by guards behind a security shutter.
You have to stasis them and run to the side, where you go through vents.
I go up a few stairs and pull out a power cell. This lets the horde of necromorphs into the security area. The guards are quickly overrun.
Now we can progress into the marker lab.
Inside the lab the scientists seem to have been analysis what the marker actually does. It broadcasts codes and blueprints, some people can see them, most go mad.
I come to a room where it looks like a marker is being built, or grown. Lasers are circling it. Is this a marker manufacturing area. why would you build one, let alone lots of markers?
I have to circle the marker, avoiding the lasers, stasis does not work on them. In each room that you can use to hide in monsters attack.
I go to another area and have a huge horde to fight.
A brute attacks. I hack the door and enter a huge cylindrical area. We are on the outside, there are lots of bridges going across to it.
Chapter 14
I can see necromorphs in the distance heading for it too.
I am sensing a boss battle soon. Health, bench and save in one room.
In the next room is a marker,though it's about 200 metres tall and seems to be glowingly organic and alive. All the Necromoprhs are gathering around it for convergence.
Tiedmann tells us that it wasn't meant to be like this.
The marker starts firing a beam out into space.
Nicole tells us that they must work together. Isaac has to go into a machine in which we have to guide a needle into his eye.
Then Nicole tells him to go to the marker.
Now we meet regenerating invicible necromoprhs.
We have to shoot it to bits and hack a door while it's in stasis to progess.
Now we have a dash to get down to the marker. It seems to be a mad one as some of these new necromoprhs are invincible. I come to a door that needs a body to open and have to findd it and take it to the door under fire.
Then some more corridors with a mix of necromorphs.
Down in a lift.
Then some more fighting in rooms with mixed invincible and normal necromoprhs.
Then we have a zero g section avoiding big moving door, blasts of fire and big necromorph fire.
Another shop, save and bench combo.
Chapter 15
Now we are at the base of the marker. And all hell is let loose. There are loads of necromorphs and the invincible one that is chasing us. Running for it and shooting from the hip seems to be the best way. Using stasis and shots only to slow them down and make a path.
Eventually I get to the marker itself. Tiedmann is there and we have a quicktime sequence. Well mashing A sequence until we shoot him with a javelin gun.
Nicole embraces Isaac and then takes him into the marker in some kind of vision.
She reveals that she isn't Nicole merely a creature of the marker.
She attacks. telling Isaac that he will be absorbed.
We have to shoot her, avoiding being grabbed, otherwise it's an instant death animation as we see Isaac commit suicide. When we shoot nicole enough the marker opens and we can shoot it's heart.
Do this enough and it's over. The marker is destroyed.
Isaac sits down as the credits roll.
Ellie comes in on the gunship to get him.
Oh it's not over we have to fly Isaac to the ship. The station explodes.
We see a close up of Isaac and dread what is going to be found when we pan to Ellie. However, she is fine. A little in joke for those that finished the first one.
The true credits roll.
New game plus is unlocked which allows you to start the game with your powered up character from the last playthrough.

535 achievement points on normal difficulty level.
11 hours 30 minutes

Prince of Persia: The forgotten sands

2011-01-30T03:14:00.001-08:00

I can only choose normal or easy. Normal it is.

A cut scene shows the prince enter a portal and arrive in a palace floating in the sky.
He walks up to a bowl of water on a pedestal. A woman scolds him.
He tells her of his history and begs to be allowed knowledge of a secret.
As he does we see a flashback, possibly of a kingdom under attack.
The prince arrives and clambers around some breaking buildings for the cinematic's of it.
He feels that the welcome isn't what he was expecting.

we get control of the Prince in a third person view.

Right and left sticks for movement and camera.
A is jump.
X is basic sword attack, hold it for power attack.
Right trigger is wall interaction.
Left trigger pauses the water
Left bumper uses the repair scenery power
Right bumper rewinds time
Y is push a guard
B is drop from ledge or dodge when fighting
Dpad triggers powers depending on the direction pressed.

Mission 1 Tutorial
we get a tutorial section where we run around and jump some gaps.
The battle is raging all around in the distance.
We are shown that running at a wall and holding the trigger wall runs or clambers up the wall.
I am dying often here, the controls seem very particular. Not very intuitive at all.
Eventually I manage to learn that jumping isn't a good plan most of the time.
I have a bunch of guards to fight then we get to the clambering on the ledges section.
We have a few more clamber rooms to negotiate
Then we are shown that we can slide down big banners by sticking our sword in and ripping down them.
Bad checkpointing already.
We come to a dias and stepping on it's centre opens a door.
Hitting vases releases red orbs. Which I think are health.
These door controls have timers.
There are smaller wooden beams that can be walked along on top of areas.
We can grab onto prominent bricks and scale walls this way too.
seems like the tutorial is over. We see the Prince's brother in the distance fighting and being forced to retreat.
Eventually after much clambering we reach Malik.
He asks that we open a gate for him.

Mission 2
We have two timed switches to press and then another to open the gate.
There is no way down and we talk to Malik and tell him that we will meet him and he should go on.
We clamber arounda bit more and find that there are now columns we can climb up and shimmy around.
There a poles to swing from and we can jump from wall to wall in small spaces.
We eventually get to a vault.
Malik wants to use the magical power of Solomon's army to prevent the invaders from winning.
The choices are poor. If they don't use it the power will fall into the hands of the enemy.
Malik triggers the army spell.
Warriors rise from the very sand and kill Malik's men. turning them to sand.
We have to escape the devastation.
As we do we see a portal and end up catching up with the beginning of the game

Mission 3
The girl is a Djinn, she tells us that the army was formed from the sand, and the more sand it touches then the bigger the army grows.
The army wasn't owned by Solomon it was sent to kill him.
The Djinn sealed it away.
The Prince needs to complete a seal to send the army back into it's prison.
The prince is given powers by the Djinn.
We now have the ability to rewind time for a certain duration.
This is metered and we have only around ten seconds of leeway.
Basically if you make a mistake you can take it back to a certain extent.
I come to the stables and the sand skeletons start to attack.
As I am fighting them gold orbs come from them. These give us xp which counts towards upgrades.
The upgrade screen is found by pressing back and there is a large skill tree.
I buy an increase to the health bar.
Now we have a long clamber puzzle. The Uncharted style of telling you where to go by camera hints is used and it takes the frustration away but also a lot of the discovery and puzzling.
We now have swinging traps of logs and spikes to dodge under.
Now guillotine style swinging pendulums.
We have a room with a slightly harder puzzle, the camera is no help this time.
I buy trail of flame here after fighting enough skeletons to get an xp token.
The trail of flame uses energy and is activated by pressing right on the dpad.
I find some normal soldiers who have been turned to stone, the Prince seems to think they will be ok and returned to normal after the seals are put back in place.
I am shown the location of a hidden sarcophagus, which kind of renders the hidden bit meaningless. Still I suppose they have to tell you about them or you won't know you are looking for them.
I meet Malik across a balcony and we have a chat. He thinks the seal pieces are keeping them from being turned to stone. He tells the prince that they should meet face to face rather than have the Prince toss him the seal piece.

Mission 4
The works
The works are supposed to be the gears that work the castle trap systems.
Basically giant moving platform sections.
Then a puzzle room with a large pedastal that turns in the middle which we need to raise up and then negotiate a timed switch at the top.
I come to another puzzle room with rotating cogs and a pedastal to raise. After fighting some more enemies I get an upgrade and choose stone armour.

Mission 5
The Fortress courtyard
A large devil like creature appears and summons another minotaur like creature. We then get to fight a larger horde of new bigger and better skeleton creatures.
I buy energy slot 5, which gives me a new energy slot for powering my upgrade weapons.
We have a large room with an awful lot of platform clambering. Timed blades in the walls now have two sets to make things interesting.
I buy the whirlwind power.
The minotaur boss can be seen rampaging around knocking down the scenery.
I clamber a bit more and come face to face with it.
The fight is fairly easy, with no real hard work at all. The boss runs around and charges at you. when it does it knocks itself out for a few seconds and you can hit it with impunity. There are some normal skeletons around but the boss's charges take care of them for you.
Now we are moving around a large courtyard.
Rolling logs with spikes and spiked that come out of foor plates.
We come to a gear puzzle. Floor switches and levers move gears and cogs around and we have to free the mechanism and move cogs around to get to where we need to go.

Mission 6
The Fortress gates
We need to shut the gate to keep the sand army out of the fortress.
More busywork then really. Malik will slope for a coffee and a cake while we do all the hard work as usual.
We have to use three levers to move a cog all the way to the other side. Which means you move one lever, make the cog turn then go back and move the lever to move the gears around a little, then rinse and repeat. Soon the cog is in place and the gears are unlocking the gate.
Malik turns back up and tells the Prince that he can feel himself getting stronger with every enemy he kills. The Prince seems to think this is a bad thing. Though he himself is getting xp and new powers as he does so as well. That isn't really making sense, though I presume Malik will get drunk with new found power and go nuts and become the end of game boss. Let's see if i am wrong?
I get the gates closed and then we are attacked by more enemies. In cut scene the Prince goes to the aid of Malik and jumps on a crate held up by two chains.
The chain breaks and the Prince swings about in the chaos. We see two huge bosses arrive.
Now we have a similar fight as the first boss fight, only two at a time.
Skeletons and bosses, yet this seems easier than the first.
Malik wants to go and kill all the enemies and gain their power. The Prince begs him to wait there. reminds Malik that the power he is gaining is gained because his people have been turned to stone. Malik is relucant. The prince tells him to throw down his amulet. Malik asks the Prince to give him his. The Prince hesitates and Malik sneers telling the Prince that he knew that he was seeking the power as much as he was.
I can now buy ice blast.

Mission 7 the Prison
I find a portal. The Djinn tells us that we have waited too long and that Malik is being affected by the evil power. The Prince has been protected by the Djin Powers.
She tells us that we will need to seize the amulet from Malik if he won't give it up willingly.
She gives us the power over water.
Back through the portal we go.

Mission 8 The sewer
Here we add water spouts that go on an off intermittantly. Running on waterfall walls.
There are new spawn enemies that raise more skeletons to replace the ones you kill. Only way to progress is to target them first and quickly.
I find a sarcophagus here.

Mission 9 The Oasis
A nice palace with water channels on the floor.
A long fight with monsters and three spawners which are hard to get at amongst the throng.
After a few puzzle rooms we come face to face with Malik who sees the Prince using the water freezing. He is now convinced that the Prince wants the army for himself and isn't going to give up his half of the seal for anything.
Malik banishes the Prince and tells him that if he sees him in his kingdom again he will kill him himself.
This oasis main room is a large clamber area.

Mission 10 The royal chamber
Here we have some nice water puzzles.
The out onto a balcony and the devil guy turns up again.
He talks in an unknown language to the Prince and appears to think that he is King Solomon.
This obviously does not endear him to the Prince as he starts chucking firebolts at him.
We have to run around in an obviously scripted but nice chase sequence dodging the bolts and making our way through the ruin of the architecture that the devil is creating as he goes along.
I manage to avoid him and enter a room where he appears to lose us.
Here we have a fight and there is a sarcophagus.
Some puzzles here with the water where the frozen watter gets in your way and you have to let go of the button to freeze it and quickly press it again to freeze it for the next handhold.
Firebolt guy is back for more charging around recklessly.
Another puzzle room or two with more fighting of monsters in between.
Another sequence of devil chase then it runs off. The Prince believes that it was after the seal and if it can't grab his easily is now off to see if it can get Malik's half.

Mission 11 The Observatory
I come to a large structure, which is like a moving map of the solar system.
I find cranks that move it around and make a platform accessible.
You progess around the walls of the room moving the cogs and platforms around to get to where you want to go. Many levers and pulleys must be manipulated.
Eventually the whole thing starts working and spinning around.
You must then make use of the water stopping power to freeze the machine and use it to get to the top of the room.
We have a few more clamber and timing rooms. Then a new boss creature, same as the other before it, just bigger and needs power attacks to hurt it.

Mission 12 The Throne room.
I come into the throne room and find Malik going toe to toe with the devil.
We have to clamber to get to him and as we do he is knocked flying out of the room by the devil.
We then have to fight it.
It's a poor boss fight from ten years ago and we basically have to dodge it and bash it until prompted to do an aerial attack when it is downed.
This makes it lose it's sword and it then runs away and shoots fireballs at us.
I then have to go to it's position while it bombards us.
reapeating cut scenes after a death is a sin.
I get back to the devil and have to fight it plus a load of skeletons.
When I kill it Malik arrives back in cut scene and helps deliver the final blow.
as the devil dies the energy from it goes into Malik and then he flies of breaking down the door on the way out.
I leave the room and find a portal to the Djinn.
She tells us that Ratash has taken over Malik and we must kill him.
I get a new power which appears to be a teleport to enemy type power.

Twice now this game has crashed the xbox.

Mission 13 The terrace
Some fighting and clambering in much smaller groupings than usual.
Then up a tower and a fight with two large creatures in a small space inside the top of it.
We then make our way down the inside of another tower. There are sliding plates on the tower that must be negotiated using timed switches.
Now a new enemy, a flying creature that shoots firebolts.

Mission 14 The rooftop gardens.
As we enter this area which is quite aesthetically pleasing a sandstorm is noted to be coming from outside the palace.
We get a lot of practice using the fly to enemy attack to get to where we want to go here.
In the distance in cut scene we see Malik fighting and using the firebot attack. Looks like he is getting far along in the change to Ratash process.
We then have a convoluted timing and jumping process to get through the this complicated area.

Mission 15 : The aqueducts
We see Malik again in the distance.
Then there is some really long flow control jumps to negotiate.
We catch Malik in cut scene and see him kill some more enemies. He gains power and seems to undergo a change. He puts on a golden face mask and stomps off without a word.
We now have vultures made of sand to contend with, though they seem to be a crib from God of war III and are used to get across gaps, jumping from one to the other.
We meet Malik again in an arena like area and watch as he kills enough to finally transorm into a likeness of Ratash, complete with horns.
Now we are chaining the bird and other jumps together for long journeys. There are also moving carts her transporting water which we must jump on and the lanterns are back.

Mission 16 Solomon's tomb
We get to a large plateu of rock and see some palace guards who are still alive.
Malik jumps out nowhere and turns them to stone.
We then get into a boss battle with him. He has similar moves to Ratash from earlier. Though he has a large area attack which is fairly easy to dodge as it's well signposted for you to get into the handily provided cover.
After you get his health halfway down the floor gives way and you end up further down the building.
You then spiral back up around it fighting skeletons and using the birds and poles.
at the top we fight Malik/Ratash again and as we seem to wear his health down he does the area attack and the whole place comes down around the Prince.
We see him get up and tell us that this must be the entrance to the Djinn city.

Mission 17
I enter the heavily trapped Djinn city entrance and come to a large cylinder. There is a puzzle here, but before I can tackle it new enemies arrive. They appear to be flying scarab beetles that attack en masse.
Entrance to Djinn City
I work out that the statues here can be rotated, you have to use the water that is flowing down past them to block the rotation so that the increasing amount of segments of the statues get blocked or allowed to move. When you line up the statue to it’s original configuration the next part of the sequence is triggered. You have some clambering between each segment and then the entire floor of the arena turns to stairs going down. This is a fast ride down the slippery floored steps as they collapse.
We then get some really annoying traps.

A portal to the djinn appears and I go through. She tells us the city is very old and we will have to be careful. She gives us her memory of the city which will aid us.
After some reinforcing that we will have to kill Malik/Ratash I head back through the portal.
Immediately an example is given of this new power. Places that have collapsed are depicted in a ghostly form. Pressing Right bumper uses the power and toggles them in and out of existence. Only one can be conjured at once, sometimes you need to jump from the intransient place you are standing on to the next pressing the button to change them in between.

Mission 18 Ruins of Rekem
The Djinn appears and tells us that we are now in the ruins of Rekem.
There are a lot of big statues here, one of them is our Djinn.
The Djinn tells us of the Djinn history. There were four leaders of the Djinn tribes.
King Solomon joined with the Djinn to create great cities in the desert.
Ratash hated humans and created his sand army, The others and Solomon sealed him away.
A large creature appears and the Djinn vanishes.
After defeating the monster she tells us that something is interfering with her powers. Something she hasn’t seen before.
We come through some platforming with the new placing handhold with the right bumper switching task. Much the same as freezing the water only a new button to press.
Some traps signal the end of this area.

Mission 19 The Throne room
This is an extended platform, clamber sequence to open a door under the throne.
Some enemies at the start before the platforming.
Then into some really hard annoying trap corridors.
We come to a door which the Djinn opens after we fight a big monster and loads of scarabs.

Mission 20 The sacred fountain
We have a fight in a cube which has plant and water in it’s base.
This is a short level, a few more puzzle platforms and it’s over.

Mission 22 the Rekem Reservoir
This is a complex room involving pretty much all that has gone before. Much juggling of the missing handholds and water timing handholds.
A big room and a lot of platforming.
More traps and sliding spiral staircases.

Mission 23 Solomon’s Hall
We come to a large room with a statue of King Solomon.
Rasia vanishes and we are left to fight the monsters.
Two big monsters at a time with lots of little skeletons then a larger boss by itself.
Then we have a puzzle to clamber on.
More monsters
Now we have a little clamber puzzle to get a sarcophagus. Then a door held back by the water to enter the vault where we will get a sword that will kill Ratash.
Inside the vault the Prince picks up the sword.
Some trap corridors and a portal to the Djinn world.

Mission 24
Rasia puts herself into the sword, this way we will be able to kill ratash using the sword.
Now we have a few simple platfrom areas broken up with a lot of fighting.
Seems what the game is illustrating here is that the new sword really cuts up the enemies.

Mission 25 The Kings tower
A straightforward climbing mission up a ruined tower.

Mission 26 The Palace.
We come to a group of three spawners and have to work out how to get up to them on a balcony or we are fighting an infinite loop.
We have a lot of fighting and some simple platforming.

Mission 27 the final climb
We are to get to the top of a tower where the final showdown is to be.
This is a damn annoying new type of water jumping puzzle. Timing is everything and its hard to get it when you feel this close to finishing the game.
We come out onto a balcony and Ratash can be seen now grown massive. We fight our way up through a dynasty warriors amount of enemies to another room.
We then have another complicated ascent using birds and the annoying waterfall puzzles.
Eventually we reach the top and the showdown with mega Ratash.
We are hurled into the sandstorm and jump from piece of rubble to birds and fight the odd bunch of enemies on the way. Eventually we get to a boss battle with Ratash and it's his upper body smashing and swiping, as well as spawning enemies and firing bolts of energy at us. We have only one aim to avoid and kill the spawned enemies and hit the glowing target on the chest of ratash. Once his health bar is worn down we get a cut scene where the Prince hurls the sword into the beast's chest.
We see the people of the kingdom return to normal and Malik lies mortally wounded at our feet. He dies in the arms of the Prince and the credits roll.
After the credits roll we hear the Prince tell us what happened next. He leaves Malik's kingdom in the hands of his advisors. Takes the inert sword of the Djinn back to the djinn City. The Prince then goes to Baylon to tell his father about what has happened. We see some concept art, looks like they ran out of time or budget for that cut scene.

I play challenge mode which lets you fight against waves of enemies. This basically allows you to mop up any upgrades you didn't get and rack up the enemy kill achievements.

8 hours 30 minutes
570 achievment points